


the weakest link

by colorblindbody



Category: Criminal Minds (US TV)
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Torture, Kidnapped Maeve, M/M, Season 8, The Replicator, Torture, Zugzwang, kidnapped Spencer, picks up where zugzwang begins
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-16
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:59:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 55,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24759703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/colorblindbody/pseuds/colorblindbody
Summary: One hundred and eighty-one days ago, Spencer disappeared in the middle of the BAU's search for his missing girlfriend.Six days ago, the team was given a clue to finding him.Now, they're not sure whether they should be prepared to find him alive or dead.This should be the end. But it's only the beginning.
Relationships: Maeve Donovan/Spencer Reid
Comments: 160
Kudos: 222





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> alright, sooo, I'm incredibly nervous to post this story and I'm not even sure why! probably because I haven't posted a fic here in literal years and this is also my first criminal minds fic... BUT I'm pretty deep into writing it now and I have the rest of the plot mapped out so I guess I might as well post the first chapter and see if anyone likes it before I invest a few more months into writing the second half of it right...?
> 
> so yeah, leave a kudos/comment if you like it and I can stop fretting so much about whether anyone will actually enjoy this story, yeah? cool. thanks for reading!!
> 
> (btw there may be quite a bit of inaccurate medical information/procedures/etc going on in this fic because as much research as I try to do I'm definitely no doctor! just an fyi!!)

Morgan knows he should be prepared for what they’re about to find.

He knows, as his right hand clings to the grab handle above the passenger seat, the SUV rocking beneath him, that he should be steeling himself for what he’s about to see. Because he knows it might not be good, and no matter what, he’s probably going to be haunted by it for the rest of his life.

Instead he’s just thinking about Reid. Spencer Reid, Dr. Spencer Reid, alive, in the flesh, living and breathing, The Kid, Dr. Spencer Pretty-Boy Reid. Because he’s not dead. He’s just not. It’s just not possible.

He would feel it in his bones if Reid was gone. He’s sure of it.

His body has gone into autopilot and as the car screeches to a halt he shoves the door open and leaps out onto the dirt. They’re parked at the edge of an empty lot, in front of which stands an old, sagging warehouse building. The windows, made up of many small panes of glass running in long rows around the top of the structure, are all either covered in grime or shattered. There are no other cars parked nearby or up the road, unless they’ve been driven around back or into an area covered by brush and trees. That could be a good sign. Or maybe a bad one. He decides not to decide which. It’s quiet, almost eerily so. He knows already that there’s nothing else for at least a five-mile radius of the building -- no houses, no businesses, no signs of human life.

No one to hear the screaming when --

He’s been following Hotch across the lot and he can hear JJ, Rossi, and Prentiss stepping behind them. He and Prentiss position themselves on either side of the weather-worn door with Hotch between them while JJ and Rossi creep around the back of the building. His eyes find Prentiss’ as they wait for Hotch’s signal. The familiarity of her face grounds him for a moment, even though his muscle memory keeps expecting to find Blake standing there instead.

Blake _should_ be here. But he’s still glad that it’s Emily who’s next to him.

Even if what they find is…

But it won’t be. It can’t.

It won’t.

Hotch gives a single nod. Morgan kicks down the door.

Big room. A chair. Blood on the chair. A steel box, large -- human size, he thinks to himself, _Jesus Christ_ \-- open, empty. Blood on the box. Blood on the floor.

“Clear!” he hears himself shout. Hallway on his left, hallway to his right, hallway at the far end of the room. They split up without a word, Morgan taking the left passage.

It’s narrow. Dark. The only thing he can hear are sounds his ears can attribute to his fellow agents, distantly scanning the rest of the building for life. There’s a twisting deep in his gut. There’s no one here, is there? If he has to go running down one more rabbit hole only to run smack dab into a dead end, and walk away once again with nothing but his anger and guilt--

The beam of his flashlight catches on something shiny, hanging on the wall about five and a half feet off the ground. Eye level. He looks closer. It’s a single key, on a ring, hanging from a partially-hammered nail. His brow furrows. He casts a suspicious glance into the darkness ahead of him, then briefly shifts his flashlight to the same hand as his gun so he can slip the key into his pocket.

He clears a corner and is suddenly met by a wider portion of hallway. The left side is walled off by an expanse of chain-link fencing that reminds him of a dog kennel. Dim light filters in through the high windows and he can see the dust dancing in the air. There’s a gate, locked in place by padlock and chains. And behind that, draped across a metal prison-style bench, is a limp figure with its back turned to him.

His heart gets stuck in his throat and he forgets to breathe. He holsters his gun and reaches deep into his pocket, eyes darting back to the padlock in front of him.

No. It’s too easy.

He pulls out the key anyway and it fits. Turns. The padlock snaps open and he drags the chain away, throwing it to the side.

 _Too easy._ His brain is urging him to prepare for an unsub to come charging from the darkness behind him because there’s no way this isn’t some kind of trick. But all he’s heard from the rest of the building is c _lear_ , and there’s a fog clouding his brain that surely wouldn’t be there if he hadn’t just recognized the sandy-brown color of Spencer’s hair.

He should say something. He should be yelling for his teammates but he can’t, not yet. He doesn’t know why. He pulls the gate open toward him. The body stays motionless. He swallows, his mouth bone-dry when he croaks out, “Reid?” Still nothing. “Reid,” he tries again, louder this time. He pushes himself into the enclosure, a full-body chill creeping over him.

His wrists and ankles are swallowed by leather cuffs attached to chains traveling up from each leg of the bench. The chains aren’t long enough for his hands to reach any of the other cuffs or to allow him to fully curl in upon himself, but he’s done his best to achieve the position, his back to the gate, head resting upon his left arm, right arm and leg pulled as close to the rest of his body as he can manage with the bindings. He’s completely naked. His ribs and vertebrae are painfully visible beneath near-translucent, dirty, marred skin.

And he’s Spencer Reid.

“Spencer,” Morgan whispers. “Spencer. Spence--” He’s pleading. In the darkness, in the panic, he can’t tell if his friend is breathing, whether he’s dead or alive. He reaches out with a shaking hand and places two fingers to the vein on Spencer’s neck.

_Pulse._

Suddenly he’s able to make as much noise as his body is capable of. “I’ve got him! I need help in here! I need -- get a medic in here--” His fingers are working at the cuff around Spencer’s left wrist, shaking as they pull the belt from its loop and free his arm. Cuts and bruising underneath mark his futile struggle to free himself.

Morgan frees the right wrist just before Hotch rounds the corner, Prentiss on his heels.

“Pulse?” Hotch demands, entering the enclosure.

“It’s weak but it’s there.”

“Is he responsive?”

“Not yet.”

“I’ll get the medics,” Emily says, large eyes taking in Spencer’s dimly-lit form before she turns and runs back the way she came. Hotch meets Morgan’s gaze, his stern face drained of color, before looking down at Spencer’s still-imprisoned ankles and reaching to free them. Derek places a gentle hand on Spencer’s right shoulder and slowly rolls him until he’s lying on his back.

The tiniest shred of a whimper pierces the musty air around them and Morgan tenses up, his and Hotch’s gazes both flying to Spencer’s face. His eyelids flutter briefly and Morgan can now see, to his immense relief, the slow rise and fall of Spencer’s chest, along with, unfortunately, his protruding chest bones.

“Reid. _Spencer_. Can you hear me?” He’s shaking. He doesn’t know what to do. Which means he doubly doesn’t know what to do because very rarely does Derek Morgan not know what to do.

He takes one of Spencer’s hands in his. He thinks he hears another low murmur in response but it could just be his brain playing tricks. He allows, just for a moment, his eyes to wander down from Spencer’s face and remembers again with a twist in his gut that Spencer is completely naked. He wishes he had something to cover his friend with but it’s warm enough that none of them have a coat on and by the time he can get his shirt off from underneath his vest the medics will be there. He can already hear the squeak of a gurney being rolled toward them.

“Spencer, I’m here,” he whispers. “I’m right here.” No response. There are track marks in the crooks of Spencer’s arms, both of them. He rips his eyes away before he can take in any more of the bruises and scars marring his friend’s body.

The gurney pushes into the small space and Derek stands, moving backward to give the medics room. Spencer’s fingers slip out of his grasp.

They lift him up enough to slide a backboard between him and the bedframe and Derek’s sure this time that he can hear the soft groan Spencer emits when they hoist him onto the gurney. His stomach twists. Prentiss looks at him from the other side of the fencing, one hand covering her mouth. One of the medics unwraps an emergency blanket and spreads the shiny silver material over Reid’s thin body before they pull the straps over him and wheel him out.

Rossi and JJ are waiting near the door where they came in. JJ’s hand flies to her mouth as the gurney emerges into the blinding sun. “Oh my god, Spence--” She falls into step beside the gurney, wide, tear-filled eyes trained on Spencer’s face. He doesn’t respond to the sound of her voice but even from several feet away Morgan can hear him whimper in response to the gurney bouncing beneath him, then again when he’s jostled while being lifted into the ambulance.

Hotch’s gaze scans the faces of his four fellow agents before he gestures to collect their attention. “Morgan, ride along in the ambulance. Prentiss, take JJ and follow them to the hospital. Rossi and I will go over the crime scene.”

Morgan turns to him, incredulous. “By yourselves? Hotch, are you sure?”

“We can get a local CSI unit to come out,” Rossi says. He glances around at each of their faces. “There’s no reason for all of us to have to see it firsthand.”

JJ’s lower lip trembles before she bites down on it, hard.

Hotch nods. “Prentiss, call Garcia on the way. Dave and I will meet you at the hospital when we’re done.”

Prentiss and JJ make a beeline for one of the black SUVs parked several yards away. Morgan turns to climb into the ambulance but Hotch grabs his arm before he has a chance.

“Stay close,” Hotch says quietly. “This was too easy. They could still be close.”

Morgan nods in response and seconds later the ambulance doors swing shut behind him. Hotch doesn’t have to elaborate, he’s thinking it too. It was like the unsubs wanted to send them a message, or catch them in some sort of trap once they’d found Reid and dropped their guard. His whole body is taught with the feeling that they still don’t know the half of what’s going on.

One thing’s for sure. He doesn’t think he’ll ever be able to leave Spencer’s side again.

-

Morgan rocks in place against the chair beneath him, chin resting on the knuckles of his folded hands. He stares across the small room at the hospital bed currently swallowing his friend’s fragile body whole. He sighs and rubs his fingers over his eyelids for a moment.

He hates this. Hates it. Hates the waiting. Hates the way his mind keeps wandering off to imagine all of the horrible things that have happened to Spencer in the last six months.

Hates himself for not being able to stop it.

Spencer stirs again, suddenly, and Derek sits straight up in his seat. He watches with rapt attention as Spencer struggles to lift his eyelids, shrinking back from the fluorescent light attacking his pupils. He takes a sharp breath and jerks abruptly, only to find that his arms won’t move. His eyes squeeze shut and a high-pitched whimper rises from the back of his throat.

Morgan finds himself in a standing position and he reaches toward the bed. “Spencer, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

Spencer flinches at the sound of Morgan’s voice. A panicked look contorts his face as his eyes open again and adjust to the light. He takes in the IV needle embedded in his arm, follows the tubing up to the bag hanging next to him, stares down at the restraints binding his wrists to the sides of the bed.

Derek winces. “I’m sorry. You pulled the IV out twice.” And scratched a nurse hard enough to draw blood the second time they’d tried to put it back in, but he’s not about to recount that part, for both of their sakes. “They said you’d get an infection if you kept doing that.”

Reid’s breathing doesn’t slow, and though his eyes keep darting around the room he carefully keeps them anywhere but Morgan’s face.

His chest feels tight. Spencer hasn’t met his gaze, or anyone’s, since waking up. He’d coded in the ambulance, and once the most gut-wrenching sixty seconds of Morgan’s entire life had passed and the paramedics had brought him back he’d taken to whimpering feverishly from beneath the oxygen mask, mostly two sounds that sounded a lot to Derek like “please” and “no”, over and over. He thinks he’s going to be sick thinking about it again now.

The first time Spencer fully regained consciousness had consisted of about two minutes during which he sluggishly grabbed his IV, ripped it out of his arm, then sobbed when the nurse standing by pushed a new needle into his vein only seconds later. She’d snapped at Morgan to hold Reid’s other hand to keep him from pulling it out again. Spencer had passed out seconds after Derek’s fingers folded over his, the entire ordeal all too much for him.

The second time was about an hour later. Morgan had just been thinking he was thankful the catheter was placed while his friend was still unconscious, then immediately felt ill thinking about why he was thankful for that. He’d heard the panicked breaths and looked up just in time to see the needle torn out again, the terror painting Reid’s face. He’d shouted for help and reached for his friend, thinking he could calm him down if he was conscious enough to realize where he was and recognize a friendly face.

Reid had shrunk away from his touch, crying out in alarm, becoming more distressed when two orderlies ran into the room and grabbed his arms. He’d started pleading then, begging, the most coherent Morgan had heard him yet - “no, please, please, I’m sorry, no, please” - and managed to wrench his dominant hand away while the nurse was trying to find his vein again. Derek cringed when Spencer’s nails dragged harshly across the arm trying to pin him down. He’d sobbed, eyes rolling up toward the ceiling as if pleading silently with God himself, when a syringe slipped under his skin and pushed a small dose of sedative into his veins. He’d slipped off again almost immediately.

Morgan will never be able to get that image out of his head.

The orderlies had insisted on the restraints after that, in spite of Morgan’s vehement protests about Reid’s current state of mind and what waking up restrained could do to him.

“I’m sorry,” he says again. Spencer just shakes.

“Reid, it’s Morgan,” he tries again. “It’s… it’s Derek. We…” He exhales, trying to keep his voice even. “We found you. You’re in a hospital. We’ve got you, you’re… you’re safe now. You’re gonna be okay.”

Spencer shuts his eyes tightly, his brow furrowing over them like he’s confused or thinks he might be having a trick played on him. He doesn’t stop shaking and his fingers unfurl and furl again.

 _Christ._ He knows the restraints are doing more harm than good. Morgan hesitates before stepping closer. Spencer hears him and his eyes open again, but he still won’t look at Morgan. He chews at his bottom lip and casts a nervous glance toward the door.

“I’m gonna take them off,” Morgan says quietly, making up his mind. “But you can’t pull the IV out again. Okay?”

Spencer doesn’t move, but his eyes travel back toward where Morgan is standing. They linger in the space around his torso instead of traveling up to meet Morgan’s.

“If you pull it out again the nurses are going to come put those things right back on and sedate you again and I really don’t want that. You can’t pull that needle out. Tell me you understand.”

He hates himself for the way his words make Spencer cringe, but Spencer gives a short, shaky nod and only then does Derek reach, movements painfully slow, for the cuffs. Spencer watches Morgan’s hands, still shaking, always shaking, but doesn’t move a muscle otherwise, even when the restraints release him and fall away. He waits until Morgan has leaned back again before pulling his hands up toward his body, wrapping them around his torso best he can with an IV poking out of one forearm. He looks up at the bag hanging above him again, eyeing it nervously.

“Hey. No one’s gonna give you anything that’ll hurt you here, okay? Trust me. Those are just fluids. Your body desperately needs what’s in that bag right now, pretty boy.”

The affectionate nickname slips out before he realizes, too late, his mistake. Spencer recoils as if he’s been backhanded across the face, a full-body shudder shaking him. His fingers creep toward the IV needle again, as if by instinct, as if of their own accord.

“Leave it,” Morgan snaps, without thinking. Spencer freezes. Morgan curses himself silently. How much damage is he doing with every stupid word that spills out of his mouth?

Spencer slowly pulls his knees up toward his chest, even though he whimpers with pain at the movements. He wraps his arms tightly around them to keep his body from unfurling from its protective ball.

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispers. “I…” Spencer’s lower lip is trembling. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits, so softly he isn’t even sure Spencer hears. He sighs and slowly steps around the bed toward the door. Spencer follows the motions with wary eyes.

Derek pauses, hand on the doorknob, and looks at Spencer, who quickly looks away again. “It’s still safe. I’ll be right here.” He hesitates. “Please, Spence, don’t touch that needle. Please.” Tears are spilling freely down Spencer’s face, but he gives that jolting nod again and Morgan decides to take a chance and leave the room.

Three pairs of eyes look at him expectantly as soon as he exits. Penelope has joined JJ and Emily in the hallway. Hotch hadn’t allowed her to accompany them while retrieving Spencer -- it still surprises Morgan that she’d been allowed to come with them at all. He’d almost been able to see Hotch silently weighing what could happen to her psyche if they found Reid dead and she witnessed it. The tears in her very large doe eyes must have won him over in the end. She’d been the one to make sure they booked motel rooms as close as possible to the only hospital in the area, so that _when_ \-- not _if_ , she’d stressed -- they found Spencer, she’d beat them to the hospital. And she had. And since then she, JJ, and Emily have been pacing back and forth in front of Spencer’s room, much to the chagrin of the nurses who keep bumping into them while trying to move down the hallway.

“Oh, how is he?” Penelope whispers, wringing her hands out in front of her. “Can we talk to him?”

Derek bites his lower lip for a second, hesitant. “He’s… not great,” he admits, looking away when Penelope’s brave face starts to crumble. “He hasn’t said one word. He’s scared to death. Of me, at least.” He sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Let me talk to him,” JJ murmurs quietly. She’s staring over Derek’s shoulder at the closed door, meeting his gaze when he looks up at her.

“I think Emily should go in next,” he says, not missing the shadow that falls across JJ’s face. “I think he needs someone who’s more of a… maternal figure, to him.”

JJ’s head tilts to one side. “I _am_ a maternal figure, Derek. To Spencer’s _godson_.”

Emily winces at the sharpness in JJ’s tone, and Derek raises both of his hands, palms facing outward. “Yeah, JJ, I know that. This is not about you, okay?” He sighs. “Honestly, if Blake were here right now I’d be sending _her_ in next, God knows the way those two interact with each other--” He stops abruptly, feeling self-doubt trickle in. “Look. He doesn’t want me in there,” he grinds out. “That much is clear. And he… he needs to calm down. I just want to send someone in who isn’t likely to scare him or set him off more than I already have.”

JJ looks away, quickly brushing a rogue tear from her face. “Sorry. I’m sorry.” She nods in Emily’s direction without looking up. “You should go in.”

For a second Emily looks like she’s going to protest, maybe state the obvious fact that she hasn’t even seen Reid in over a year. But instead she just says, “Okay.”

“And please make sure the damn IV is still in his arm,” Morgan mutters.

She nods, squaring her shoulders before stepping past him and into the room.

Spencer’s body is scrunched up in a tight ball on top of the hospital bed. He’s pulled the covers as far up as he can and is clutching them to his chest. He starts when he hears the door open, but doesn’t look up, just trembles. The IV, thankfully, still seems to be embedded in his skin.

“Spencer,” she says quietly. She eases the door shut behind her with a soft click.

He stares at his kneecaps over the pile of bedcovers. There are fresh tears on his face and his wide eyes look like they’re searching, digging through layers of confusion trying to figure out what is real and what, if anything, he can trust.

Emily slowly steps closer, until she’s standing right next to him. She notes the restraints dangling off the side of the bed and feels the shudder that creeps up her spine. She hesitates, then remembers what Morgan said in the hallway and takes a deep breath. What would she have done to comfort Spencer six months ago, a year ago, when something was going wrong in his life?

She decides to take a risk and lowers herself onto the edge of the bed. Spencer, startled by the sudden closeness, flinches away when Emily’s knee brushes his hip bone by accident.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she says quietly. “It’s just me. Just Emily.” She slowly reaches up and rests her fingers, gentle and light, on Spencer’s shoulder. Her heart skips a beat at how sharp and pointed his body feels beneath her hand, like she’s reached straight through to the bone. She doesn’t miss the shiver that passes through him at the physical contact. She’s becoming a little too emotional all of the sudden, as the complete impossibility of the situation hits her.

She had been prepared, or at least as prepared as she could have been, to find Reid dead in that building. She’d been doing her job long enough to know that every day that ticked by where they didn’t find Spencer was just an increased probability that they never would. Not alive, at least. And the fact that she’s sitting here, now, hand on his shoulder with his heart still beating…

“Ooh.” She breathes out, long and hard. “I--” Her voice breaks. Spencer’s eyes slowly travel upward, and he does his best this time to suppress the flinch that comes when she rests her other hand on his knee. “I’m sorry.” She sniffs, struggling to compose herself, because this isn’t supposed to be about her right now. “I just really didn’t know if I was ever gonna see you again, Spence…”

His gaze flicks up. His eyes, brown and wet and wide and terrified, stare directly into hers and for a moment she forgets to breathe. She holds his gaze, watching in her peripherals Spencer’s hands, releasing their death grip on the bedsheets and shaking as they reach for her, then stopping short while he hesitates. She decides it’s okay to do the rest for him. She scoots a little closer and gently slips her arms around his back, waiting until she feels him lean in to pull him close.

“It’s okay,” she whispers in his ear. “I’ve got you. It’s okay now. I promise.”

She feels him shudder once, twice, then crumble completely. He sobs against her shoulder so hard she’s afraid he’ll break a rib, his fingers curling around the fabric of her shirt and clutching tight.

She holds onto him, taking care not to hug him too tight for fear she might just snap him in two. She murmurs “it’s okay” and “I know” and “I’ve got you” against his ear in time with his keening. They stay that way for at least ten minutes, until his sobs become more spaced apart, like he’s started to cry himself out. The crying dies down until he’s mostly just shuddering and sniffling but she still doesn’t want to let go of him. He stays in her arms for a few more minutes and she holds on until she feels him start to tug away from her grip.

He leans back, hands swiping across his face to quickly clear excess tears from his line of sight. His gaze bounces nervously around the room before settling upon the bedcovers again. Then he looks back up at her, a short tremor passing through his facial features like he’s about to say something. But he seems to change his mind and looks away again.

“The rest of the team would love to see you, if you’re up for it.” She watches his face. He frowns down at his hands, watching his own fingers curl around handfuls of blankets. “Is that okay with you?”

He rocks in place for a second. His lips part and he looks scared, conflicted, like he’s trying to decide whether he should stay silent when he seems expected to give a verbal response. At least thirty seconds pass, during which Emily doesn’t move an inch but Spencer has started to shake again.

“I don’t know,” he blurts out finally. His voice is hoarse, rasping, but Emily is so relieved to hear him say a real set of words that she’s not sure she’s ever heard a sound so beautiful.

“Okay.” She nods. His hand has moved to his mouth, fingers pulling at his lower lip. “What if I step out and grab JJ? Would that be okay with you?”

She stands, takes half a step away from the bed. Spencer’s hand suddenly flies up and latches around her wrist, just before she moves out of his reach. She stills and looks down at him, her shock most likely clear in her features because he immediately pulls away and shrinks back into the mattress.

“I’m sorry,” he whimpers, the words barely above a whisper.

“No, no, that’s okay,” Emily murmurs quickly, rearranging her expression. She sits back down and reaches for the hand that had kept her from walking away. Spencer stiffens at the touch but allows her to wrap her fingers around his. She waits, because clearly there’s something specific on his mind, even if he doesn’t feel like he can ask it yet.

After a long pause he peeps hesitantly back up at her face. “Blake?”

Damn. Maybe Morgan knew what he was talking about. “She’s not… with us, right now,” she says. She tries to be careful in choosing her words but Spencer’s face instantly contorts with worry and panic. “She’s okay,” she hurries to add, kicking herself. “She had to step away when…”

Shit. He’s holding his breath, waiting for her to finish, and now she feels like she has to tell him the truth. She owes him that much.

“Agent Blake was shot six days ago on her commute to work.” Spencer’s free hand, shaking violently, flies to his face, covering his mouth. “She’s fine,” Emily repeats. “And she knows that you’re okay, too.” She rubs her thumb over his knuckles and hesitates again, trying to decide whether the rest of the truth will help or make things worse. “We were able to find you because of what happened to her,” she says finally.

Spencer’s expression doesn’t change, like somehow he isn’t surprised to hear that. He blinks and a couple of fresh, silent tears slide down his cheeks. He doesn’t look Emily in the eye.

“That doesn’t mean it’s your fault she got shot.” She leans just a little closer. “None of this is your fault. You know that, right?”

He flinches. There’s still guilt etched across his face. Emily exhales. Her brain is telling her not to say the words she’s turning over, but for some reason she feels like Spencer is waiting for her to ask. “Spence… There’s evidence at the--” She almost says ‘crime scene’ and stops just in time. “It… looked like…” Spencer is tensed up beneath her hand. “Like there might have been someone else being… held there. With you.”

He pulls his hand away and wraps his arms around his torso. He’s staring down at the covers again, his eyes far away, like he’s thinking. Remembering.

At least a full minute passes and she thinks maybe it’s safe to ask again, to pull him back into reality for a moment if nothing else. “Was there someone else there, Spencer?”

He flinches, his slack expression tightening with… guilt? Shame? Fear? She waits, thinking maybe he just isn’t going to answer. Then --

“Maeve,” he whispers.

All of the air leaves Emily’s lungs. The team had been looking for Maeve for about a day and a half when Spencer up and vanished too. She hadn’t been there for that but as soon as the team realized Spencer was gone she’d gotten the call from Hotch. She was boarding an Interpol jet within the hour.

But they hadn’t found him. After three weeks the bureau had forced them to label the case “inactive” and move on. There was no ransom, no taunting from the unsub, no lead, no trace of where Spencer had gone, nothing. She’d reluctantly flown back to London with the sinking feeling that she might never see her friend again.

Penelope had called her intermittently at least once a week after, late at night her time and early in the morning Emily’s. She’d listened patiently, grief weighing her heart down, to her friend crying into the other end of the phone, rambling about internet searches with no results and nightmares about playing chess with no one on the other side of the board. JJ would call every so often, her voice choked and semi-composed while updating Emily on the fact that there were absolutely no updates. Derek even called a few times, telling her he “just needed to hear her voice” and lapsing into a pained silence before saying goodbye again. But when Hotch’s name lit up her phone screen over five months later, her heart had jumped into her throat. She’d picked up before the first ring ended, expecting the worse, then clapped her hand over her mouth to keep from sobbing out loud when Hotch started talking.

 _Hope_ , he was promising from the other end of the line. There was still hope.

“What day is it?”

Spencer’s voice rattles her out of the memory. “September first,” she answers automatically, focusing again on his face. She watches him do the math in his head, but he doesn’t blurt the answer out when he gets to it. Six months ago he would have said the answer out loud. Six months ago he would have been monologuing. God, she wishes he would start monologuing.

181 days.

Five months and twenty-eight days.

“I don’t know what day she died,” he whispers finally. He sounds fragile, far away. Emily’s fingers flutter to her face, her stomach twisting.

“Oh, Spence. I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t respond. He’s still holding onto himself tightly, his gaze distant, unfocused.

“Spencer…” She hates herself for what she’s about to say, but now suddenly she’s gripped by a feeling that she has to. “I have to ask…”

“You haven’t caught them.” It’s not a question and his voice is monotone, the most even it’s been since she stepped into the room. The way he deadpans the words and the slack expression on his face scare her more than the abject terror that had gripped him just minutes before.

She takes a deep breath. “No. We have not.”

He barely blinks. He’s completely unsurprised. There’s a churning in her gut thinking about what that might mean.

“Did you recognize any of them? Do you know who they are?”

“Do you?” he asks, instead of answering, his voice detached.

She weighs the decision in her head before pulling her cell phone out of her pocket. His head turns, eyes following the movements of her fingers while she pulls something up on the screen and then looks back at him, hesitating before turning the phone around. His hands grip the sheets until his knuckles turn white, his face draining of what little color it had held as she moves her finger across the screen once, then again, showing him all three photographs before turning the screen away.

“Missing two,” he rasps.

“There’s five?”

He bites his lip. “...At least.”

She slips her phone back into her pocket and lays a light set of fingers on the crook of his arm. He jumps at the touch, but won’t meet her eyes. He’s shaking again, all over. “I can’t do a cognitive.” The fear is back in his voice, his words more of a terrified plea than a statement.

“I’m not asking for one,” she says quickly. She hates that it’s the first thing his brain jumps to. The threat of being forced to remember, to relive it. “I won’t ask you to do that.” She pauses, sensing she may be about to push too far. “But if you know anything, just off the top of your head -- names, conversations they had--”

“Emily--” It’s the first time he’s said her name. She should be overjoyed at the sound, but it comes out as a plea, a desperate, pained appeal for her to stop. He’s gripping the covers with violently trembling hands, eyes squeezed shut.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” She puts her arms around him again, holding him even as he shakes against her.

“I can’t, I can’t, I’m sorry,” he whimpers, voice muffled by the folds of her shirt. “I’m sorry…”

“ _I’m_ sorry, Spence. I’m sorry. It’s okay.” She starts to rub her hand in small circles against his upper back, hoping to provide some comfort, but he gasps and presses forward against her at the touch. She quickly lifts her hand, realizing, too late, that she’s putting pressure on his wounds, hurting him. Her insides burn with guilt and rage, realization of the pain her friend must be in washing over her again.

“I’m sorry,” she tells him again. “It’s gonna be okay now. It’s over.”

“It’s not...”

“What?” She pulls back so she can look at his face.

His jaw clenches. He turns away, staring down at his lap again. “It’s not,” he whispers. “Over. You haven’t… stopped them...”

“We will.”

He shakes his head. “They’ll come back.” He’s back to monotone. She feels that same flash of fear again at the sound.

“No,” she says, her voice shaking but firm. “No. They will never lay another _finger_ on you, ever again. We -- _I_ \-- won’t let that happen.”

He looks at her then, right in the eyes, his gaze dark and dead and empty. A full-body chill passes through her. He reaches for her hand and lifts it off the bed, moving her fingers for her until they drag through the tangles in his hair and push up against the skin behind his ear.

Her breath catches in her throat as her fingertips brush a patch of rough and raised skin and her brain scrambles to put a name to what she feels there. A blurred image of Ian Doyle appears in her mind and the skin above her breast burns for a moment with phantom pain. Her chest tightens. She leans in for a closer look, and Spencer turns his head so she can see without her having to ask. Holding her breath, she gently pushes his hair out of the way.

The letter _Z_ is branded into his skin.

She pulls her hand away. “Spencer?” She can’t hide the horror in her voice.

He looks up at her again, eyes just as cold and void as before.

“Zugzwang.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi!! thanks so much to everyone who read & left a kudos or comment!! it seriously made my day getting the notifications, I'm so stoked that there are people reading & enjoying it so far! I've been helping some friends move but I tried to get chapter 2 edited and ready for posting as fast as I can to show how much I appreciate the comments & kudos! so here we go!

“He says they killed Maeve.”

Morgan eyes Emily while she speaks, watching the way her hands shake. She’s obviously rattled by whatever Spencer had said to her in the thirty minutes or so she was inside the room. Or not said, perhaps. He feels a tiny surge of jealousy knowing he’d been right and Spencer had spoken to Emily, possibly even let her hold him, comfort him. He shoves it back down, deep as he can make it go. He still helped his friend by knowing to back off and send Emily in, he tells himself. And it isn’t Spencer’s fault that Morgan now apparently scares the living daylights out of him.

“That’s all he said? He didn’t elaborate?” JJ asks.

Emily shakes her head, picking at her lower lip with two fingers.

“Did he say anything useful?” Derek pushes.

“He confirmed the three men in the photos. But he says we’re missing two more. At  _ least _ .”

“Did he say anything else at all?”

She hesitates, a deep frown etched into her brow as she looks briefly around at them, eyes settling upon all of their faces before she answers, “He asked about Agent Blake.”

“And?”

“I mean… I told him the truth.”

“You told her Blake got shot?” Morgan doesn’t bother to hide the incredulity and anger in his tone.

“Were you thinking we would hide it from him?”

“I was thinking maybe we could wait until he was a little less terrified.”

“I don’t see that happening anytime soon.” JJ, Penelope, and Derek all flinch. She winces, but it’s not like they weren’t all thinking it, so she clears her throat and doesn’t take it back before continuing. “He said they’d be back. Like he was  _ sure _ of it. I mean…” She doesn’t really know how to describe how eerie it felt, watching all of the emotion drain from Spencer’s face while he talked about it. Like part of him was so resigned to his fate that he forgot to be scared.

“What else?” JJ prompts, when Emily doesn’t continue right away.

“He showed me…” She pales a bit and out of instinct her eyes find JJ, the only person who actually knows  _ all _ of the things Ian Doyle did to her that night. Her fingers ghost across her chest out of habit before she forces the words out. “Behind his right ear. There’s a…  _ brand. _ The letter Z.”

“Zugzwang?” JJ whispers. The color seeps from her skin as well.

Emily nods grimly. JJ, Morgan, and Garcia exchange glances, each of them feeling dread and horror rising in the pit of their stomach.

“So what, this is all still supposed to just be them taunting us?” Morgan snaps. He rubs at his temples. The Replicator -- well, hell, he supposes there’s five of them now, so The  _ Replicators _ \-- have been dormant for months, resurfacing only once that they know of in the time since Spencer’s disappearance. He remembers entering the room where they found the body, the word “zugzwang” scrawled in red across the wall, over and over and over again.

But the body wasn’t Maeve’s. They still haven’t found her. As far as he knows, no one has.

“He’s sure Maeve is dead?” he asks, when no one replies to his first question.

Emily’s shoulders go up. “All he said at first was her name when I asked if anyone else had been held there with him. Then he asked me what day it was and when I told him he said he… he didn’t know what day it was when she died.”

“Jesus,” JJ murmurs, blinking to keep the tears in her eyes.

“Was he awake when you left him?”

Emily nods. “I should go back in. I don’t want him to be alone.”

JJ looks at Emily, her eyes big and longing. “Do you think… Can we see him, too?”

Penelope looks up as well, expression hopeful.

Emily looks back and forth between them, hesitating. “I think so -- slowly,” she adds quickly, as if they’re about to go stampeding past her into his room. “One at a time.”

Penelope’s face falls when Emily gestures for JJ to follow her in, but she nods and turns, pacing a few steps away from them. Emily feels a pang in her chest, but she’d asked Spencer if JJ could come back in with her when she returned, not Garcia, and she doesn’t want to scare him with an unexpected surprise, no matter how innocent.

Spencer looks up at the sound of the door opening, relaxing a little when he sees Emily, then quickly averting his eyes when he sees JJ enter after her. Emily lingers by the door. JJ smooths the palms of her hands over the front of her slacks, stepping hesitantly toward the bed. There’s a rolling stool pushed against the wall and she reaches for it, fumbling to drag it closer without looking while her eyes stay trained on Spencer’s face.

“Hey,” she whispers, lowering herself into the seat. Spencer doesn’t reply, his eyes searching the thin air above his head before briefly meeting Emily’s gaze. He allows JJ to take his hand between both of hers and he looks at her then, holding her gaze for several long, fragile seconds before his lower lip quivers and a single tear drops from his right eye. She reaches up without thinking, meaning to brush it away with her thumb. He flinches at first, nearly shying away, then surprises both JJ and Emily by leaning into her touch. Her hand cups the side of his face in a soft caress.

She bows her head toward their intertwined fingers, his knuckles brushing against her hairline. “Thank you,” she whispers into the air, eyes closed. Emily isn’t sure who she says it to. God, maybe.

“I missed you so much,” she says, this time definitely to Spencer. He nods, sad eyes looking back into hers. A few more tears spill over their edges and she catches them on her fingertips, her touch patient and loving.

Emily watches them interact for a few minutes, making sure Spencer seems calm and relaxed before opening the door again. Penelope’s waiting next to the door, and her face lights up when Emily motions for her to come inside. Derek looks up briefly from pacing, one hand holding a phone to his ear and the other buried deep in his pocket.

Penelope all but tiptoes as she enters the room, hardly daring to breathe. Spencer’s eyes follow her while she steps to the side of the bed opposite JJ, trying to drag the chair Morgan had sat in earlier behind her without making too much noise. Her movements are painfully slow as she eases herself into the seat. There are tears spilling unchecked down her cheeks from behind the thick lens of her glasses.

“Hi,” she squeaks, mustering a small, brave smile. It grows just a bit wider when Spencer’s fingers curl around hers as she hesitantly takes his free hand. He doesn’t smile back, but his gaze meets hers steadily and his eyes are warm and missing the fear and dread from before.

“Where are we?”

He could have been asking any one of them, but he’s looking at Penelope, and she frowns. “Um, we’re in the hospital, honey.”

“Mm.” He slowly shakes his head back and forth. “ _ Where _ are we?” His words are quiet, tired.

“Oh. Oh!” Penelope’s eyebrows go up. “Wyoming. We’re in Wyoming. Basin, Wyoming.”

If he’s at all surprised at how far they are from home, it doesn’t show in his face. His head rolls back against the pillow behind it. His breath evens out, and his eyelids flutter, and he’s gone again, sleeping.

They all seem to be holding their breaths until they’re sure. JJ lifts one hand as if to stroke the hair on Spencer’s head, then pulls it back, afraid of waking him.

“Stay?” Emily whispers, after several minutes of silence, and they both nod without looking up from Spencer’s face. She turns the door handle as slowly as she can, careful to shut it behind her without making a sound.

Morgan’s finished his phone call since the last time she came out. He’s sitting in a chair next to the door, bent forward with his elbows on his knees and his fingers clasped tightly together. He looks up when he hears her, staying quiet until he knows the door is closed.

“He’s sleeping,” she says.

He nods and straightens, crossing his arms over his chest.

“How are Hotch and Rossi doing?”

“Hotch said they’d be able to leave the scene soon.”

She leans against the wall next to him. “So?”

He raises his eyebrows at her.

“I know you have thoughts. Let’s hear ‘em.”

Morgan sighs. “I’m just trying to make it all fit together. Some of this still doesn’t make sense.”

“Like what?”

“The Replicator -- or, hell, Replicators? -- that all started with murders copying the MO of people we’ve put away.”

“Mhmm, I’ve read the file.”

“Right. Then he -- they -- go silent, all of the sudden. We have to put it on the backburner, take other cases. Then Maeve goes missing. Spencer gets that call and that’s the first time ‘zugzwang’ becomes a part of the puzzle.”

“And that wasn’t part of it before.”

“Never. Then, about a day and a half after we realize Reid’s gone missing, a bouquet of white roses gets delivered to JJ’s desk. The outside of the card says ‘condolences’ and on the inside: ‘zugzwang’. Printed, not handwritten.”

“Right.” Most of this information is nothing new to Emily but she allows Morgan to continue talking it out with himself.

“We think for a second we can get the unsub through the flowers, but that’s a dead end, too. Then… nothing.”

She has a sudden thought. “The last copycat murder. That was after I left.”

“Yes.”

“Do you remember the date you found the body?”

He’s silent for a moment. Reid would remember, he thinks, with a pang in his chest.

“I… April. Seventh? No. Eighth? Maybe. Why?”

She shakes her head, but pulls her phone out of her pocket and taps her thumb against the screen.

“Prentiss. What are you thinking?”

“I’m not sure yet.” She’s scrolling through something, left to right. “Keep going. I’ll let you know.”

“All right…” Derek thinks for a moment, then shakes his head. “To my knowledge, nothing else that happened in between now and then was related until Blake got shot.”

“Six days ago,” Emily murmured.

“Yeah.”

“And you knew it was related when?”

Derek’s eyebrows go up. Emily already knows this, but he humors her. “When we met her at the hospital and she was still clutching a picture of Reid and a handwritten note that said ‘zugzwang’.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Seriously, Prentiss. What are you getting at?”

“I’m… just… doing the math,” she mumbles, still looking down at her phone.

“Math?” His eyebrows go up even higher.

“Well, someone has to do it,” she quips, and both of them almost smile and then wince instead. She shakes her head slowly. “The flowers came, you said, about a day and a half after Reid was gone? And that was March 4th?”

“Okay. Yes.”

“If you found the next Replicator crime scene on April 8th -- what time of day was it?”

“Ah…” He thinks. “Evening.”

“How long had she been dead?”

“Not long. M.E. said twelve hours or so, most likely.”

“So if she was killed on April 8th, that’s exactly 35 days after Spencer first went missing.”

He shrugs. “Okay. Significance?”

“I don’t know. But Blake getting shot was exactly 175 days after he went missing, and that’s a multiple of 35.”

He frowns. “Coincidence?”

She shrugs her shoulders again. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure if I believe in those so much anymore.”

“So say it isn’t. The number 35 could mean something.”

“No idea what, though,” she muses, lowering her phone and putting the screen back to sleep.

_ Reid would. _ Reid also would have done the math on the dates in his head in about two seconds. Morgan’s not sure if he wants to laugh or cry at the thought.

“175 divided by 35 is 5. Could the number 5 mean something, too?”

She chews on her lower lip, looking a bit helpless when she meets his gaze. “Those numbers could mean just about anything, or nothing at all, with nothing else to go off of.”

He nods, sitting back in the chair. “What’s bothering me is how easy this was, all of the sudden. Maeve and Reid are abducted and vanish without a trace, to the point where even  _ we _ can’t find even a trace of them. Then out of nowhere almost six months later, evidence just starts popping up, almost like they left us a trail of breadcrumbs to follow on purpose. By the time we get to Reid, they’ve cleared out, but he’s alive. Not only was he alive, but he seemed sedated--”

“Is the tox screen back yet?”

“No. Even if he wasn’t sedated, he--” He swallows past the very large lump in his very dry throat. “He coded in the ambulance,” he says quietly, avoiding Emily’s gaze. He hears her exhale slowly. “I don’t think they could have been away for more than a few days, even if it turns out he wasn’t still under sedation when we got there. Whatever else they were doing to him, they were still making sure they kept him alive.”

“You think they knew we were coming.”

“I think they had a pretty good idea of the window they would have to leave before we got there but still make sure we found him alive.”

“Someone… on the inside?”

“Or someone good enough to hack their way to the information without Garcia noticing. Or, hell, maybe they’ve just been doing a very good job of surveilling us without us noticing. Those pictures we found at the last Replicator crime scene were taken close.” He shakes his head, wondering for the thousandth time how he, or any of them, could have allowed this to happen, could have allowed these unsubs to get so close without any of them noticing.

“And making sure we found Spencer was… What? A message?”

He shifts weight, growing more and more uncomfortable the longer he thinks about it. “There was a key hanging on the wall at eye level. Right before you’d turn the corner to get where he was…” He hesitates before picking a term, grimacing as he completes the thought. “...fenced in. The key was to the padlock keeping that gate shut.”

Emily’s face has developed a hint of green around the edges. “So what? They’re… playing a game? Trying to make some kind of point?”

“The brand was a message. The flowers, ‘zugzwang’, those were messages. I’d say this is more like outright taunting.”

“Taunting  _ us.” _

“Hard to imagine the copycat murders would be for anyone else.”

“To tell us… what? Look how easy it is to take one of your own away from you? Look how easily I can get your attention, take you away from other people who need help?”

“Or ‘look at how much damage we can do’.” He’s thought this at least forty times in the last two hours but he still thinks he’s going to be sick.

She squints down at him. “Something else?”

“Reid didn’t tell you he saw Maeve die.”

She frowns. “Not in so many words, but…”

“Well just say he didn’t. Say he doesn’t have any way of knowing for sure that she’s dead.”

Emily’s eyebrows go up. “You think she’s alive?”

Morgan raises his hands, palms facing outward. “Just… stay with me for a second. They kept him alive this long. Why not her, too?”

“It’s hard enough to keep one person subdued for that long, let alone two, and in different locations.”

“But there’s five of them. At least.”

She thinks for a moment. “So you’re saying you think at some point they moved her, maybe put on a show like they were killing her out of sight somewhere, and convinced Reid that she was dead?”

He winces. “I don’t know if I believe it, but I think at this point it’s possible.”

“But why keep her alive?” Emily paces a few steps back and forth in front of him. “If this is all supposed to be a message, for one of us, for all of us, for the FBI in general… Maeve’s not FBI. As far as we know her only link to the FBI and the BAU is Spencer. So if they took her originally to hurt Reid and make him more vulnerable, why not just go ahead and kill her for real to inflict the maximum amount of pain?”

“Because if she was still alive they could use her as leverage again later.”

Emily stops pacing and looks down at him, eyes wide. They stare at each other for a second before she closes her eyes, chewing her lower lip in thought. “So they have a secondary location. They’d probably want it to be within reasonable driving distance so they can go back and forth, retreat to the other location if one of them became compromised.”

“If Maeve’s alive, that’s where they’re keeping her.” Emily nods in agreement. “Do you think he’s still asleep?”

“I can check.”

“I think you should get Garcia out here. I’m gonna call Hotch.”

-

“What are you thinking, then? A hundred miles? Two?”

“I don’t know. Geography is Reid’s thing.”

“Well Reid can’t help us right now,” Hotch snaps back at him, his voice sharp through the phone receiver. Morgan lets the heavy pause sit in the airwaves between them, until he hears Hotch mutter “Sorry.”

“How you guys doing out there?” Morgan asks quietly, turning his back on Garcia and Prentiss. Garcia remains hunched over her laptop screen but he feels Emily’s eyes boring into his back.

“It’s rough,” Hotch admits quietly, letting his guard down for one rare moment. He clears his throat. “We’re just wrapping up.”

“You guys headed back this way?”

“Well, that’s the plan. Unless you have a more specific idea of where else we should be headed.” 

Morgan sighs. “Not right now, I mean--”

“I’ve got something!” Garcia exclaims. He whirls around, watching her beaming face as she keeps typing.

“Hotch?”

“I heard.”

“Hang on,” Penelope commands, fingers still flying over the keyboard.

“Stay on the line.”

“Sure.” There’s another long pause. “Morgan, you said Reid recognized the three suspects when Prentiss showed him.”

“Yeah.”

“They know he can identify them. And yet it seems they let us find him alive on purpose.”

His jaw clenches. “Way ahead of you on that one, Hotch,” he mutters.

“And from the way Prentiss said he acted -- like he’s so sure they’ll be back -- whether or not he knows it or is able to tell us right now, it seems like he overheard or figured out their next step, or maybe they even fed him information on purpose. Maybe to scare him, or throw him off, or make our moves more predictable…”

“Yeah. No, I got that too.”

“You four are not to let him out of your sight. No one is to administer any medication or run any tests without explaining themselves to one of you first. Am I clear?”

“Hotch, there’s no way any of us are leaving him alone. Probably ever again.”

“Good. And when Garcia finishes the task at hand have her run background on every person employed at that hospital.”

“You got it.”

Penelope sits back in her chair, looking up at Morgan. “I think I know where they are.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is a little shorter than chapter 1 but chapter 3 will have some juicy bits!! thanks for reading as always and leave me a lil comment if you're having fun :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi! welcome back! I don't have much to say this time except thanks as usual to everyone who's been reading, and especially everyone who's left a kudos or comment! every notif I get about new comments makes me so happy and stoked to keep writing. so thanks!! :)

Prentiss is pacing and chewing her nails and Morgan really wishes she would stop doing both. “When will we hear something?”

“The site’s over an hour away. I doubt they’ve made it there yet.”

“They made sure to cross state lines,” Emily murmurs.

“Well, state lines or no, few can escape the nimble fingers of Penelope Garcia.” Penelope doesn’t even look up as she jests. She’s now busy pouring through hospital personnel files. Morgan almost smiles. Penelope’s been more depressed than he’s ever seen her for the last five months. He’s lost count of how many times he’s told her that them not finding Reid is no more her fault than any one of theirs, but every single time she would insist that she should have found something by now and that maybe she just wasn’t looking hard enough. He’s grown accustomed to hearing her familiar quips less and less often.

“Yes,” Emily agrees absently. Derek sighs and looks at her pointedly and she stops pacing, glaring at him over Garcia’s head. “Don’t start.”

“I forgot how annoying you are when you’re stressed.”

“Children, please,” Garcia mumbles, waving one hand in each of their general directions.

Emily looks at the door to Spencer’s room and Morgan sighs. “Go back in. I’ll let you know when he calls back.”

She hesitates, then nods. “When you know something just... knock. Quietly.”

“I got you.”

He watches her slip back into the room, still struggling not to be jealous that she can go in and he can’t. He wants to be in there with Reid so badly that if he focuses too much on just  _ how _ badly he feels like he could go out of his mind from thinking about it.

Garcia happens to look up in time to catch his anxious look toward the door. “Hey.” She stops typing. “He’s gonna be okay.”

“I know, baby girl.”

“And he’s gonna want to see you, too. When he isn’t so…”

“I know,” he says again. But he’s not sure he believes it.

-

JJ looks up when Emily enters the room, but Spencer doesn’t move a muscle. His eyes are still closed, breathing still even. JJ still has the fingers of her left hand threaded through those of his right. Her hand must have gone to sleep by now but she isn’t complaining. From the way she’s looking at Spencer’s face, Emily’s not sure if she’ll ever complain about anything again.

“Has he woken up?” Emily whispers. She eases herself into the chair Penelope had vacated.

JJ shakes her head. “The nurse from earlier said he would probably start sleeping for a few hours at a time when he started to feel safer,” she murmurs. “Then for longer periods, as time passes.”

Emily nods, leaning back in the chair. It’s been maybe an hour and a half since he first drifted off. Personally, she hopes he’ll stay asleep for as long as his body and brain allow. She settles in, joining JJ in watching Spencer’s face as he sleeps, his sweet, young features smooth and slack and free of pain.

As it should be.

She remembers the way the raised ‘Z’ shape behind his ear had felt beneath her fingertips and shudders. She doesn’t remember the skin there being hot to the touch, suggesting it had healed over. How long has he had it? Her fingers brush her chest again subconsciously.  _ Her _ skin hadn’t stopped burning until months after her last plastic surgery treatment. At some point one of her doctors had suggested the pain might be solely in her head. She’d felt like she was being brushed off at the time, but now she figures he was probably right.

So he must have gotten it awhile ago, she decides. But it’s a miracle it hasn’t been horribly infected. In fact, it’s a miracle his whole body isn’t riddled with infection. She wonders if they’d given him antibiotics to keep that from happening. At this point anything seems possible, since now it seems as though the plan was always for them to find Spencer alive. She’s almost angrier thinking about them giving him antibiotics than thinking about them letting him die from an infection. That means everything they’d done to him, every evil, sadistic thing that she couldn’t even begin to imagine that had happened to him, had been purposeful, calculated. It means they were always supposed to find Spencer alive, to see the pain he’s been put through.

But is the point really just to taunt them? To mock them by showing just how far the unsubs are willing, and able, to go to hurt one of them? And the team as a whole, in the process?

She feels sick just thinking about it, and thoroughly enraged. How dare they, how  _ dare _ they attempt to reduce him to just a pawn in their twisted game, a vehicle for their torture, an ends to their means. Spencer is good to the core. Still innocent, so much so that he seems almost childlike at times, even at 31 years old. All he wants, all he’s ever wanted, is to help people. Protect the innocent. Keep as many people as possible from getting hurt.

He doesn’t deserve this. No one does. But especially not Spencer.

JJ looks up, alarmed, when she hears Emily release a heavy, shaking breath and finds tears streaming down her friend’s face. Emily realizes she’s been crying and shakes her head quickly, motioning vaguely with one hand. JJ’s expression softens. Her eyes are red and puffy, too.

They sit for a good while longer, Emily breathing deep and long to calm herself down while she returns to gazing at Spencer’s face, trying to ignore the yellowing bruises around its edges. And his jawline. And his neck. And…

A quick and light rap at the door snags her attention and she starts, standing quickly and motioning for JJ to stay put.

“What’s happening?” she demands, as soon as the door has shut soundlessly behind her.

Penelope looks up, eyes and cheeks wet, mouth hanging slightly open. “They found her. She’s alive.”

Emily looks from her to Morgan, who nods in confirmation, phone to his ear. “Oh my god.” She sags against the wall, her hand reaching down and finding Penelope’s.

“How far can she be transported? Are you bringing her back here now?” Morgan pauses. Emily waits impatiently for the answer she can’t hear Hotch give, fingers of her free hand tapping against her thigh. “Okay. Copy that.” Another pause. “No, he’s still asleep. No, I don’t think so. Yeah. Me too.” He glances down at the laptop balanced across Garcia’s thighs. “No, she hasn’t found anything so far. Okay. Let me know.” He hangs up. They both look at him expectantly.

“They’re taking her to a medical center closer to their location to make sure she’s stable and okay to travel another hour.”

“How long does he think they’ll be?” Garcia asks, eyes wide and hopeful, probably imagining a very dramatic and tear-jerking reunion in her head.

“Hopefully a couple of hours. If not, tomorrow morning.”

“Did they say how she was?”

“Shaken and banged up for sure. But lucid, alert.” Hotch’s exact words after that had been ‘better than Spencer’, actually, but he thinks it best to leave that part out.

“Can we tell Spencer now?” Penelope asks hopefully, her bright expression dimming a bit when she sees Emily already shaking her head.

“He’ll think we’re lying,” she murmurs. Derek nods in agreement, and she assumes Hotch already advised against them sharing the news. “It’ll confuse him, make him more upset than he already is.”

“Seeing is believing,” Morgan says, his tone grim. He looks pointedly in Emily’s direction. “Let’s just hope he takes it better than when you came back from the dead.”

Emily scoffs. “Let it go already, will ya?”

“Not a chance.”

She almost smiles. Their banter is now devoid of the stress and annoyance from earlier. Now that they know Spencer is safe and stabilized, and Maeve too, that just leaves…

Her gaze sharpens, ghost of a smile gone. “You didn’t mention them making an arrest.”

A shadow passes over Morgan’s face. “That’s because they didn’t.”

“No,” Garcia groans under her breath, tipping her head back against the wall.

“Maeve was the only one in the building.”

-

Hotch isn’t surprised to find exactly zero unsubs at the site Garcia directs him to.

He  _ is _ surprised to find a young woman, very much alive, and very much awake.

This building is much smaller than the last and laid out like an office complex, with two stories, narrow hallways and no elevator. Various windows are blown out and boarded up but the door is still sturdy enough to warrant a sharp kicking in. He and Rossi yell “clear” back and forth to one another several times before he hears it; the quiet but clear sound of a woman’s voice yelling for help above them.

They clear the second floor, following the sound of the voice to the locked door at the very end of the hallway. Hotch kicks this one in as well, and it swings open to reveal a quaking form on the other side of the small, square room.

The first detail his brain registers is that she’s clothed, unlike Reid when they found him, in a dirty and tattered pink flower-print sundress that hangs loosely from her emaciated form. Her ankles and wrists are strapped to a metal bench in the exact same way Reid had been restrained, but she’s pulled herself into an upright position and is staring at them with wide-stretched eyes. She sees the large, block-print letters on their vests and bursts into tears.

Hotch holsters his gun. “Maeve Donovan?”

She starts nodding, her movements frantic. “Yes, yes, I’m Maeve Donovan.”

“I’m SSA Aaron Hotchner, this is SSA David Rossi. We’re with the FBI. You’re safe now.” He hears Rossi radio quietly for the medics. “I’m going to take the cuffs off, okay?”

“My left arm is broken.”

“That’s alright. We’re going to take care of you now.”

She doesn’t recoil as he crosses the rest of the distance between them, but he keeps his palms raised and facing outward just in case. She’s still watching him when he kneels in front of her and reaches for her right arm, but her expression has shifted like she’s realized something.

“You’re… are you... his team...” He barely has time to nod before she whispers, “Did you find him too?” The cuff on her right wrist falls away and she immediately grabs hold of his forearm with all five of her thin fingers.

“Yes.”

Her lower lip quivers. “Alive?”

“He’s alive,” Dave answers, hands working to free her ankles. “And I imagine he’s going to be very happy to see you.”

Hotch frees her other arm and she drags it away from the cuff, cradling it against her as best she can. “Thank you,” she chokes out through her tears. “Oh, God, thank you.”

-

Emily makes JJ switch out with her so Garcia and Morgan can give her an update. She looks frustrated by the thought of leaving Spencer’s side for even a second but doesn’t argue. She manages to detangle her fingers from Spencer’s without waking him, stretching and wringing out her hand, which confirms Emily’s assumption that it had long since gone to sleep.

Emily goes back to her chair from before, turning it so her back is to the wall and sinking low in the seat. She rests her head against the solid surface behind her, letting her feet slide far out in front of her. It’s been a long day. She just needs to rest for a second. She’s not going to sleep. It’s just for a second. Just for…

A sharp, strangled gasp shocks her to her feet. She half-expects to find a pair of hands wrapped around Spencer’s neck from the way he’s struggling to breathe, but it’s just him, eyes stretched wide and clouded with terror. He splutters like he’s drowning, fingers reaching up like claws toward his own throat.

She realizes he’s about to hurt himself and her brain kicks into gear. “No, no no no--” She lunges forward and wraps each of her hands around each of his, gasping when he grips her fingers tightly in response. “Spencer. Spencer, stop, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

He makes a sharp gurgling noise, eyes unseeing and staring over her shoulder, glazed with panic. Emily feels her own alarm growing.

“Breathe,” she commands, trying to keep the distress out of her voice. “Breathe, Spencer. It’s okay. You can breathe. You’re okay, you’re fine. Just breathe. Look at me. I’m right here. You’re okay.”

Spencer’s gaze locks into hers, actually seeing her now, and a hysteric whine escapes him before he manages to pull a deep, shuddering breath into his lungs. She hangs onto his fingers, nodding encouragement. “That’s right, that’s it. Just breathe. You’re okay. You can breathe.”

“D-Drowning,” he whimpers, through the fresh tears streaming down his face.

“No one’s drowning. No one’s gonna hurt you.”

Spencer squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head slowly back and forth and sobbing quietly. “No more,” he begs.

“No more,” she agrees, close to tears herself. She cautiously releases his right hand and lifts her own to his cheek, cupping the side of his face. He flinches but doesn’t pull away.

“Please,” he whispers.

“You’re in the hospital,” she repeats. “It’s Emily. You’re safe. I’m gonna stay right here. No one’s gonna hurt you anymore.” She lets go of his other hand and caresses his shoulder.

He suddenly leans forward and flings his arms around her, clutching the back of her shirt for dear life. She shakes off her initial surprise and carefully hugs him to her

“Emily,” he chokes out against her ear.

“That’s right,” she murmurs. “I’m here.”

“Don’t let them take me again.”

She closes her eyes for a moment. The words hit her like a punch to the gut. “I will not let them take you, Spence. No one’s gonna take you. I promise.” They’re not supposed to make promises like that. But she’s going to keep this one or die trying. She feels him start to let go and helps him lean back, rearranging herself on the edge of the bed. “You were just dreaming. It was only a dream.”

“It happened,” Spencer rasps. He turns his head to the side and shuts his eyes, a short tremor passing through him.

“A memory, then,” Emily concedes, trying not to grit her teeth against the words.

“I was being drowned,” Spencer murmurs. His brow furrows, like he’s trying to remember something else. She waits, not wanting to hear whatever it is but waiting all the same.

“Waterboarded,” he amends, whispering the word into the air above his face.

Emily sees red.

-

Hotch calls with an update about an hour later, just after Emily switches out with JJ and Penelope again. Spencer has calmed down considerably, but she’s still barely suppressing the urge to put both of her fists through the nearest wall.  _ I was being drowned. Waterboarded. _

Part of her knows this is merely the tip of the iceberg, that the list of methods used to torture Spencer is long and riddled with horrors she hasn’t even thought of yet. Her brain has already taken the liberty of filling in the blanks with such wild abandon that she doesn’t know if she’ll ever be calm again.

She’s just returned from several long minutes of splashing cold water in her face when Morgan’s cell phone rings. He eyes the stray droplets on the shoulders of her shirt and in her hair, but doesn’t comment.

The medical staff at Hotch’s location wants to keep Maeve overnight before clearing her for an hour-long drive. He promises to be there by ten the next morning and tells them to take shifts for the fourteen hours between now and then, so they all have a chance to return to the motel and get a semi-decent amount of rest. Morgan makes a sound that could be interpreted as agreement before hanging up, but the look exchanged between himself and Emily confirms that none of them are about to go anywhere but here. Not tonight.

“Going back in?” he asks, watching her sag against the wall.

“Not just yet.”

He sits up, eyebrows raised. “Something happen?”

She sighs, staring down at the floor. “I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“Emily.”

She’s not about to tell him. Derek  _ will _ put his fist through the wall. “It’s just hard,” she murmurs. “Seeing him like that. I needed… a break.” She feels selfish as soon as the words leave her mouth. Spencer’s been missing for six months and after finally getting him back and spending less than two hours in the same room as him  _ she _ needs a break. Boo freaking hoo, Emily.

“It’s okay,” Morgan says, reading the expression on her face. “I get it. You don’t have to feel bad.”

“Yeah. Well. I do.” She notices the thin blue folder in his lap. “What is that?”

“Tox screen.” He flips it open and she crowds in to read over his shoulder. Their eyes widen at almost the exact same time.

“Dilaudid.” Emily feels her teeth grinding together. “Jesus christ…”

“Fentanyl. Phenobarbital,” Derek continues reading. He lowers the paper and looks up at Emily, who’s begun to pace again. “These drugs wouldn’t have been in his system for longer than three days or so. And there were still decent concentrations of Phenobarbital and Fentanyl in his blood when they took the sample. If I had to guess I’d say they drugged him within twelve hours of us getting there.”

“There’s no way they didn’t know we were coming.”

“Not a chance.” His mouth sets in a thin, grim line. “But if it was someone on the inside, how would they have known we figured out where Maeve was? We know it’s not one of us… someone in CSI? I mean…”

“Or a hacker,” Emily reminds him. “Or… Hotch said Maeve was lucid when they picked her up. Which suggests she hadn’t been sedated, at least not in the time between them dosing Spencer and us finding Maeve.”

“So… maybe they didn’t go back to her when they left Spencer.” He nods. “Actually, they probably didn’t. I mean, if she’s in a better mental state than Spencer and she’s willing to talk, she can tell us herself how long it’s been since they last left her alone. But either way…”

“They had to know we’d put two and two together eventually and they were sloppy enough to leave a clue as to where we could find her. And since they didn’t slip up at all before that for six months…”

“No. No, that doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense for us to find both of them on purpose. Not alive. If they went to the trouble of keeping her alive to use against us later, why just give her back?”

Emily exhales and crosses her arms, leaning again against the wall near the door. “Part of the game?”

“Maybe. But I don’t like using that assumption to blindly plug holes in the profile.”

“Neither do I.”

“Maybe Maeve will talk to us when she gets here.”

“Or better, to Hotch and Rossi before they get here.” She almost smiles. “Once she and Spencer lay eyes on each other I doubt we’re going to be able to get them apart again.”

“Mm. Maybe she’ll get Reid talking, too.”

Careful what you wish for, Emily wants to tell him, but she holds her tongue.  _ I was being drowned. Waterboarded. _

-

Less than an hour later one of the nurses announces that Spencer’s bandages need changing.

“We can sedate him to make it easier, if--”

“No,” Prentiss interrupts. She glances at Morgan. “I’ll… I’ll keep him calm.” The nurse looks at her with an expression that clearly says  _ and how do you plan on doing that? _ “Just give me a minute.”

Inside the hospital room, JJ is seated in the same spot from before at Spencer’s side, holding his hand and speaking to him in low, soothing tones. Penelope’s on the opposite side of the bed, fingers tapping voraciously against the keys of her laptop and squinting eyes focused on the screen. Emily’s surprised Spencer’s been okay with her sitting there doing that, but he doesn’t seem bothered, or frightened, other than the jolt that passes through him when he looks up to see who’s coming in. Maybe the sight and sounds of Garcia hard at work are still familiar enough to instill a sense of calm.

JJ doesn’t stop talking when Emily steps in, and after a few seconds Spencer’s eyes return to her face. They don’t seem to be conversing so much as Spencer seems to be listening to her speak. It’s a start nonetheless. Emily hates to interrupt, especially knowing the reason she has to will most likely send Spencer back into a tailspin. She lingers at the foot of the bed, hesitating.

JJ trails off and glances up at her, soft expression sobering as she reads Emily’s body language. “What’s up?”

Emily looks from her to Spencer, addressing him when she replies, “The nurse needs to change your bandages.”

She hears Penelope stop typing. JJ’s shoulders sag a little and she turns back to Spencer, who has pointedly averted his eyes and is slowly sliding his fingers out of JJ’s hand.

“It’s -- It’s okay, Spence, we can stay with you,” JJ says. Spencer’s knees slowly slide up toward his chest, where his hands have wrapped protectively around his upper body. He doesn’t reply, hints of panic seeping into his expression. He gives Emily a quick glance, the way an animal looks at you from the middle of the road right before you run it over with your car.

“JJ and Penelope can step out for a few minutes, if you want me to stay with you.” She ignores the briefly crestfallen look that passes over JJ’s face, watching Spencer for his response. Penelope is already standing up, cradling her still-open laptop with one arm to keep it from falling.

Spencer seems scared to share what he thinks about her suggestion. One of his hands has risen to his mouth so he can chew at his thumbnail.

“Is that okay with you?” Emily prompts, thinking maybe he’s trying to decide whether she expects him to reply.

She doesn’t miss the nervous glance he casts in JJ’s direction before nodding a couple of times, not looking anyone in the eye.

“Okay. That’s okay,” JJ says quickly, like she’s trying to make sure Spencer knows she isn’t offended. “We’ll be right outside. We’ll come back later.”

“Can you send the nurse in?” Emily murmurs, as JJ passes.

“Yeah.” JJ places a soft hand on Emily’s shoulder, squeezing for a second before letting go. Penelope’s heels click as she follows JJ out.

Emily barely has time to take a few steps toward the bed before the nurse is in the room, already talking them through the steps she’s about to take to change the bandages. Emily isn’t sure Spencer is listening, but when the nurse starts to lower the bed from its 45-angle degree he remains in an upright position like she’s asked.

He flinches at the feeling of her hands undoing the back of his hospital gown and Emily grabs the edge of the nearest chair, pulling it close to the bed. She sits and takes both of his hands in hers, capturing his attention for a moment. The short arms of the gown are pushed a few inches down past his shoulders to keep the fabric out of the way and his breath catches in his throat.

“Hey. Look at me.” She doesn’t mean for it to sound so much like an order but he quickly obliges, eyes latching onto her face. He winces when he feels the old bandages being peeled away from his skin.

“Don’t look,” he pleads.

“I’m not looking.” She gives his hands a gentle squeeze. “What were you and JJ talking about?” Maybe she shouldn’t ask, maybe it’s not her business, but she’s grasping at straws to keep Spencer’s mind focused on anything but the hands on his wounds.

“Henry,” Spencer whispers, his eyes sad.

Emily gives him a small smile that she doesn’t even have to force, thinking about JJ’s adorable little boy. “He’s gonna be so excited to see you.”

But maybe she shouldn’t have said that because Spencer’s expression darkens and he shuts his eyes for a moment. “Not like this,” he mutters, after a long pause. He can’t stop the shame that creeps into his features. Emily’s insides clench.

“Whenever you’re ready,” she agrees, trying to keep her voice light.

She scrambles to think of something else to ask or bring up that doesn’t have to do with the case. Before she can, the nurse announces that she’s finished with the bandages on Spencer’s back and instructs him to lie down so she can fully remove his gown. Emily watches his face worriedly while helping to ease him back, until he’s lying flat. He’s shaking again, breaths coming quick and heavy. He stares up at the ceiling, eyes searching blankly for something that doesn’t seem to be up there.

“Don’t look,” he says again, then bites his lip at the feeling of the gown coming off. The nurse has a sheet pulled up to his waist, but Emily still keeps her eyes averted like Spencer asks.

“I won’t. It’s okay.” He grits his teeth at whatever the nurse is doing. “Hey, look at me,” she reminds him. He slowly turns his head to the side until their gazes meet again. A stray tear escapes from the corner of his left eye and spills toward his hairline.

“Did you--” He stops talking as soon as he’s started. His voice is barely above a whisper. “Did you find…”

“Find what?” Emily asks, when he doesn’t continue right away.

There’s a long pause. A really long pause. For a moment she thinks he isn’t going to answer.

“Her body.”

It feels like someone’s punched the wind from her lungs. She scrambles for a second, trying to decide what to do. She’s not supposed to tell him the truth, not right now, but the thought of reinforcing his belief that Maeve is dead makes her sick to her stomach. But the risk of sending him into hysterics is strong if she tries to convince him that Maeve has been alive all along, and deep down she knows she can’t.

“No,” she says. And technically, it’s true even though it’s also not true.

And technically, she hates herself.

“I never got to hold her hand.”

She thinks she might cry. She can’t, though. She won’t. Not in front of Spencer. She racks her brain, trying to think of something she can say to keep Spencer’s attention on her that won’t also upset him. “But you... got to see her?” Wait, no, that feels like a mistake.

He turns his head back so he’s looking up at the ceiling again. “They… made her… watch.” The tears spill sideways out of his eyes. He inhales sharply and his gaze travels down, toward the nurse’s hands.

“Look at me,” Emily whispers.

He does, after a few seconds. Her eyes are so sad it makes her insides physically ache. A moment passes and he doesn’t say anything, and she allows him to squeeze his eyes shut and leave them that way because it’s killing her to look into them.

“All done,” the nurse announces, and Spencer lets her re-dress him, sitting up with her and Emily’s help, and leans forward obediently so she can fasten the back of the hospital gown into place. She’s gone again seconds later.

“It’s my fault,” Spencer murmurs.

Emily looks at him in alarm. “Spencer, no--”

“I put her in danger.”

“What happened to her--”

“She didn’t deserve it.” He isn’t speaking over her, more like under her, but she stops talking every time he starts all the same. “She was -- She was so… S-She…” He shakes his head, sucking in a deep, labored breath.

“Spencer, listen to me.” Emily moves from the chair to the side of the bed, her fingers on his forearm. Spencer flinches. He doesn’t look her in the eye. “What happened to Maeve, what happened to  _ both _ of you, is not your fault.  _ None  _ of this is your fault.”

Spencer’s lower lip quivers. “If we hadn’t kept talking… if I had just let her go…”

“Spencer. The only thing that you are guilty of is loving her.” Spencer’s shoulders shudder in a silent sob. “You did nothing wrong. You couldn’t have known.” She reaches up with her free hand and brushes his hair out of his face. “And Spence. You didn’t deserve any of it, either. You… you do know that, don’t you?”

He inhales shakily, looking up at her through heavy eyelids. He doesn’t answer, but allows her to leave her hand against his face, smoothing her fingers through his hair and clearing the tear tracks from his cheek with her thumb.

The door opens and she looks over her shoulder to see JJ poking her head inside. She makes eye contact with Emily before fully entering the room, pulling the door shut behind her. She smiles affectionately at Spencer when she sees his tired eyes watching. “Hey. Can I sit back down for awhile?”

Spencer gives a small nod Emily stands up as JJ sits down. “I’m gonna step out and talk to Morgan.”

She feels Spencer’s gaze following her out. Derek and Penelope both look up when she steps out, but she avoids their eyes and heads down the hall in the other direction.

She barely makes it to the bathroom before the tears start falling. She leans against the sink, gripping the edge of the counter and bending slightly over it while she cries, full-on, unchecked sobbing that she can’t bear to hold in any longer.

The door to the restroom creaks as it swings open and she jumps, hurriedly swiping at her eyes before looking up. Penelope’s face contorts with sadness and empathy and she pushes the door closed behind her. “Oh, honey.”

Ah, crap. She turns away again and sucks in a deep breath, trying to calm herself down. “I’m okay, I just need a minute.”

“You can take more than that if you need to.”

She shakes her head. “I’m fine.”

Penelope steps closer. “Okay, well… I’m not.” Emily looks up to see tears shining behind her friend’s blue-framed spectacles. “I’m having a, a really hard time, y’know, keeping it together, um, right now, so I would understand, you know, if you were, too, especially because I know right now the only person he’s really talking to, like  _ actually _ talking to, is you, and I have no idea what he’s saying but I can only imagine--”

“You don’t wanna know,” Emily murmurs, closing her eyes and crossing her arms tightly over her chest. Penelope starts to hug her and she steps into the embrace, resting her forehead on Penelope’s shoulder.

“Look, I know you don’t want anyone else to see you cry, and you probably don’t think you should be crying in the first place because you need to keep it together for Spencer and put on a brave face for all of us but you are  _ allowed  _ to  _ cry _ , do you hear me? You may be, like, the strongest lady I’ve ever met but you have a  _ big _ heart, Emily Prentiss, and there is nothing wrong with that, so if you need to let it out, you just go ahead and let it out, and if anyone else has a problem with it, well, they can come talk to me, and I’ll, I will, I will  _ tell them _ , that we are going to cry in the bathroom as much as we want to, within reason, and they’re just going to have to deal with it. Okay?”

Emily can’t help laughing through her tears, the sound muffled against Penelope’s cardigan and foreign to her own ears. She hasn’t done much laughing lately. “You really are the best.”

“Well, yes, of course I am, I know that. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.”

She disentangles her arms so she can return the hug. “I love you, okay? I’m really glad you’re here.”

Penelope sniffs, loudly, in her ear. “Well, I’m glad  _ you’re _ here, and not in London, thousands of miles away, so that I can’t tell you in person that I love  _ you _ , more than life itself.” She squeezes Emily very hard and then releases her, stepping back and lifting her glasses up with one hand so she can dab beneath her eyes with the other. She looks in the mirror and straightens her posture and smiles at their reflections. “Now, I am done, so I’m gonna go back out there and keep scouring the internet for information until I pass out across my keyboard, and  _ you _ are going to stay in here and take as much time as you need.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Emily watches her leave and then sags back against the counter, sighing to herself. She turns the water on and leans in, cupping a cool handful and splashing it over her hot, puffy face. She blinks the moisture from her eyes and looks up, making eye contact with herself in the mirror.

_ I was being drowned. _

_ Waterboarded. _

_ They made her watch. _

“Stop,” she whispers to herself. She straightens and shuts the water off, squeezing her eyes shut and shaking her head. Her limbs feel very tired and heavy all of the sudden. She needs to sleep, and not feel guilty for needing to sleep, and not keep replaying Spencer’s words in her head until she winds herself up too much to sleep.

You’re allowed, she tells herself, remembering Penelope’s long-winded speech. You’re allowed.

But she still feels guilty.


	4. Chapter 4

JJ can’t think of anything else to talk to Spencer about, especially when he isn’t saying anything back, so she tells him every Henry-related story she can think of that he’s missed over the past six months, then several more from before then that he’s probably already heard. Spencer just listens, silently, without even a period murmur or nod to indicate his focus. She would wonder if he isn’t even listening if his eyes weren’t focused, bright and sharp, on her face the entire time.

She finally, for a few minutes, runs out of stories to tell, and she’s quiet, thinking, slowly stroking the top of Spencer’s hand with her thumb.

“JJ?”

It’s the first time he’s said her name. Her breath catches in her throat, but she tries not to let the surprise show on her face. “Yeah, Spence.”

He swallows, gaze shifting to stare blankly over her shoulder for a moment before refocusing on her face. “Is my mom okay?”

She doesn’t miss the guilt that twists his expression. She hesitates, mostly because she’s still a little bit in shock that Spencer is suddenly speaking to her.

“JJ,” he rasps. She feels his fingers curling tighter around hers. “Please.”

“She’s okay,” she rushes out, realizing he might think she’s debating whether or not to share a worst-case scenario. “She’s still at Bennington, we made sure none of the payments for her care were interrupted while you were… gone.”

Spencer looks away again, his facial features contorting like he doesn’t actually want the answer to what he’s about to ask. “Does she… know?”

“No,” JJ says quickly. She smooths her thumb across his knuckles again and takes a deep breath. Now it’s her turn to be nervous. “When I spoke with the doctor, and I explained… he, um, he didn’t think it was a good idea to tell her. At least not while we still didn’t know for sure if… um…”  _ If you were dead _ . She takes another long breath. Spencer waits, expression sober, still facing straight ahead instead of at her.

“We had to go through your apartment, try to see if there was anything there that could help.” She remembers how wrong it felt, rummaging through and cataloguing every aspect of her best friend’s personal life. But he doesn’t seem surprised at all by this; his expression remains exactly the same. So she keeps going: “Obviously, there wasn’t much, but… I found a letter you wrote. Postmarked, addressed to your mom, but... the envelope wasn’t sealed.” She hesitates again. This is the part that makes her feel the most disgusted with herself.

“I made a copy of it and I mailed it.” She looks down at her hands, both of hers now wrapped around his one. “And then I… copied your handwriting and tone the best I could and I… kept sending her letters. From you.” It sounds even worse, saying it out loud. She blinks to keep the tears from falling. “It felt…  _ so _ wrong, but the doctor thought it would be better, at least while we didn’t know… anything for sure, to… to do everything possible to keep her from thinking something was wrong, so I… I kept doing it, and sometimes they would tell her that you had called while she was asleep so she wouldn’t think that you weren’t calling…” 

She watches a single tear roll down Spencer’s face and winces. “The longer I did it, the worse I felt, but we still didn’t know anything after so many months and I didn’t know if… Did I do the wrong thing, I mean… She’s a mother, and I couldn’t imagine if… Should I have told her, I--”

“No,” Spencer murmurs. “The truth would have killed her.” He gives her hand a weak squeeze. “It was the right thing to do.”

She feels as though a weight has been lifted off of her, and she nods, still struggling not to cry. His head rolls to the side and he’s looking at her again, expression tired but less strained than when he’d first asked.

“Thank you.”

The tears come back and she blinks hard to keep them in her eyes. “Of course, Spence. Not being able to… find you, to do anything, felt…” She probably shouldn’t be saying this, laying heavier words than she means to upon his shoulders, and she backpedals. “I’m glad I was able to look after your mom, at least. I… I missed you so much.”

He lets her smooth her fingers through the hair above his forehead, maintaining eye contact. He doesn’t need to say it back. They both already know.

“Do you want to call her? Your mom.”

“Not yet. I...” He swallows, hard. “Soon.”

She doesn’t press the issue. “You should get some rest,” she says softly, noticing his eyelids start to droop again. He’d looked tired already when she’d come back into the room, and she’s been rambling on, keeping him awake, for probably an hour at least.

“Hmm,” is his quiet reply. He watches her for a few moments more, the time between his eyes closing and reopening growing longer with every blink. “JJ.”

“Yes.”

“You can sleep, too.”

She frowns a little. “I -- I’m fine, Spence.”

He opens his eyes long enough to look at her face, and she feels exposed for a second, knowing he can see the heavy bags she feels hanging beneath her own eyes. “It’s okay.” His eyelids droop again. “Someone else will stay awake,” he mumbles.

She can’t help but smile a bit at that, but she doesn’t reply, just watches him as he drifts off. She hears his breathing even out and she waits until she’s sure he’s asleep. Then she leans down, presses her face against the hospital blanket, and allows herself to cry.

-

Penelope’s head lolls to one side and she wakes up, wincing at the stiffness in her neck and mentally collecting her whereabouts. She realizes she’s dozed off, her laptop still open in front of her at half-charge. She quietly closes the screen and looks around. JJ is still asleep, bent forward at an uncomfortable-looking angle with her head resting near Spencer’s leg, shiny hair spread out behind her over the bed and one hand still wrapped loosely around Spencer’s.

When her gaze drifts up to Spencer’s face, however, she realizes his eyes are open and looking right at her.

“Oh!” Too loud, Penelope, too loud. “Hi,” she tries again, this time in a whisper. She stands up, setting the computer down in the chair behind her. “How are you? Are you feeling better? Are you doing okay? Is there anything you need? Because I, I can get it for you, okay, anything you want, you just let me know.”

She knows she’s talking her normal amount of way-too-much and she knows she should probably keep it more “lowkey” while Spencer gets his bearings and for a moment she worries she’s overwhelmed him. But then he lifts his free hand off the bed and reaches out. Her whole face brightens and she wraps her fingers tightly around his.

“Penelope.”

“Yes, my darling.”

“Can…” He swallows, clears his throat raspily. “Can I… have something… to eat?”

Her mouth takes the shape of a perfect ‘O’. “Oh. Oh! Yes! Yes, of course, my baby! I--” She looks down at her watch. “The cafeteria won’t be open for another hour but you know what, I’m going to go right now and and I’m going to ask the doctor what’s safe for you to have and then I’m going to go get two of everything and come right back here with it as soon as I can, okay? Yes, okay.” She gives his hand several loving pats with her own and then places it carefully back onto the bed. She can’t help but reach for his head to give that a loving pat, too.

He takes a sharp breath, obviously startled by the hand suddenly hurtling toward his face. She pulls back, realizing her mistake. “Oh! Sorry. I’m sorry. You must be so tired of people doing that. I’m sorry. Oh, I just love you so much--” She reaches down and pats his hand a couple more times instead, ducking her head so he won’t see the tears in her eyes. “Okay. Okay, I’ll be right back. Hang tight.”

-

“Yes. Thank you, Morgan. We’ll be on our way soon. Okay.” Hotch hangs up and turns to Rossi. “He asked for solid food a few hours ago.”

“That’s good.”

“Yes.” They both stand as an orderly pushes Maeve out into the waiting room, her hands clasped together in her lap and posture relaxed against the back of the wheelchair.

Hotch cannot get over how different Maeve’s demeanor is from what he’s heard about Spencer’s over the phone. She’s been quiet, somber, nervously eyeing new people when they walk into the room, and tensing up or flinching away when touched. But her voice is calm when she speaks to them, in full, unwavering sentences, and she seems completely at ease in the company of Rossi and Hotch, like she knows fully and implicitly that she can trust them, that they’re there to protect her, not hurt her. It leads him to believe that even though they’ve been held by the same group of men for the last six months, their experiences must have been vastly different ones.

Maeve has been declared fit to travel the one-hour distance separating them from the rest of the team, but they’ve decided to do so via medical bus just in case. Rossi offers to drive the SUV back to Basin so that Hotch can ride along with Maeve and the paramedics.

“You can ask me,” she tells him, once they’re moving.

He looks across at her. She’s asked to ride upright instead of on the gurney and every time they hit a bend in the road she grips the edge of her seat so she doesn’t slide off. She might be in a better state mentally than Reid, but she’s still just as weak and frail-looking as he is. The difference is she wasn’t also covered head to toe in lacerations when they found her, just some bruising, dehydration, malnutrition, and a spiral fracture in her left forearm. She had insisted she was strong enough to get around on her own, so the nurse had hung her bag of fluids on a rolling IV pole and forgone placing a catheter. Hotch had watched her through the window between her room and the hallway once the nurse had left. She paced the room for nearly half an hour, stopping a few times to look out the window and watch the sun set.

Maeve rearranges the tubing of the IV line running into the crook of her right arm. The tape holding the needle in place covers most of the track marks there. She scratches at her cast and blinks at him and he remembers that she asked him a question.

“Sorry?”

She offers him a small smile. “I know there are things you need to ask me, Agent Hotchner.”

“Just call me Hotch.”

Her features soften. “He calls you that.”

“Yes.” He looks at her for a moment. Her eyes are far away. “You haven’t asked how he is.”

She looks up at him, a hint of alarm growing in her expression. “You said he was alive, is he -- is he not… stable, or...?”

“No, no, nothing like that.” He rubs his chin, wondering if there’s even a half-delicate way to phrase what he’s trying to ask.

“Agent--” She stops, clears her throat. “Hotch,” she amends. She leans forward a little, un-casted hand gripping one of her bony knees. “You said he’s alive. I… I can fill in the blanks from there.”

The bus hits a bump in the road, jolting them. Her body slides forward and she grabs the bench beneath her to keep herself from falling. She winces, but waves off Hotch and the paramedic when they reach for her. Hotch waits for her to steady herself before he asks the question he’s been dreading the most. “How much of it did you see?”

She leads forward a little more, looking him dead in the eye. “I saw everything.”

-

It’s Hotch who wakes Emily, his stern expression softer than usual as he looks down at her. She sits up quickly, rubbing her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re here -- Morgan didn’t wake me.”

“I told him not to.”

“That wasn’t necessary.”

“I’m just glad any of you slept at all. I see no one’s left the building.”

“Did you think we would?”

“Not really, no.” He gives her a hand as she struggles out of the plastic armchair.

“How’s Maeve?”

“She’s a very strong young woman.” They stop in front of a window and Emily follows his gaze through the open blinds. A frail woman with long brown curls is perched on a hospital bed having her blood pressure taken. She looks up at them, eyes focusing on Hotch. Emily has stared at the photos in their case file enough times to know who she is.

“Garcia says Reid went back to sleep after eating. We’re waiting to see if he wakes up on his own while the nurses get Maeve situated.”

Emily nods. Maeve says something to the nurse, who responds and touches her lightly on the shoulder before turning back to the IV needle she’s prepping. “She seems… okay.” She frowns, trying to find the words to express what she really means. “I mean, not… not like Spencer.”

“No,” Hotch agrees. “Unfortunately it seems Reid had it much worse than she did.”

She throws him a sharp glance. “Did she tell you that?”

“We spoke a bit on the way here.” He meets her gaze. “I’d rather wait to discuss it with the whole team.”

“Of course.” She looks back at Maeve. “Did you tell her that Spencer is…”

“I didn’t have to. She seems to know what to expect.”

_ They made her watch. _ She grimaces.

“Prentiss?”

She breathes out, long and hard. “He said they made her watch.”

Hotch’s mouth forms a tight line. “She told me that, as well.”

Her fingers curl into a fist. “We have to get these sons of bitches.”

“We will. And she wants to help, even if Reid still can’t right now. She’s agreed to talk to us some more after she gets to see him.”

“That’s good,” she murmurs, trying not to think about what little desire she has to hear Maeve recount every intimate detail of Spencer’s torture.

“Do you want to meet her?”

“I do.”

Hotch pushes the door open and lets her step through first. Maeve gives them both a tired smile.

“Hi,” she says, more to Hotch than to Emily. Her voice is soft, quiet, but steady. She seems completely comfortable in Hotch’s presence, something Emily wishes she wasn’t surprised by, but is.

“Maeve, this is SSA Emily Prentiss.”

“Emily,” Maeve repeats, warmth spreading over her features. She reaches out with the hand that isn’t in a cast and Emily takes it. “You came all the way from London?”

“I did,” Emily says, unable to keep the surprise out of her voice. Maeve gently withdraws her hand, cheeks flushing with color.

“Sorry. I’ve heard so much about you, I forget we haven’t met.”

“No, that’s all right. At this point I kind of feel like I know you, too.” She winces. “Sorry. That sounded creepier than I thought it would.”

“Not at all.” Maeve’s attention shifts back to Hotch. “Do you know if he’s awake yet?” She flinches a little as the nurse places her IV. She flexes her arm a few times to get used to the sensation.

“I was just about to check again.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll be right back.”

“Um. Hotch--”

He stops and turns around again. Emily’s a little shocked to hear her use his nickname. Maeve herself seems a little uncomfortable with it, so Emily assumes he must have asked her to.

“If he isn’t, can you wake him? Please?” Her lower lip quivers, the first time Emily’s seen her falter since stepping into the room. “I think he’ll sleep a lot better once he knows I’m not dead.”

Hotch’s face softens. Emily almost thinks she sees the hint of a smile there. “I’ll bring him back with me, don’t worry. Sit tight.”

Maeve folds her hands together -- or comes close, given that one of them is encased in plaster -- and looks down at her lap. “I don’t know how he’s going to react,” she admits.

“It’s going to be a shock.” She notices as Maeve’s expression shifts. “Ah, don’t tell me. You know about that, too.”

She seems apologetic now as she looks up at Emily. “Sorry, I didn’t… maybe I wasn’t supposed to know that. All we had for so long was conversation. We shared… as much as we both could, I think.”

“Oh, no, I understand. It’s okay. It wasn’t really a secret, anyway.” She pauses, thinking about the way Spencer’s voice was always softer, tender, the few times she’d heard him talk about Maeve. “It’s going to be a shock when he sees you, and he might be confused at first, but… He really loves you. He’s going to be overjoyed.”

Maeve smiles, a tiny, sad one, and wraps her hand around Emily’s again, this time unprompted. “Not telling him until I got here was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t have believed you. They were very... convincing. It would have made him feel upset. Unsafe. And…” She hesitates. “Forgive me, if… I hope I’m not overstepping, but… it’s not the same as when you, um… as when he thought you were dead.”

Emily’s brows go up. She exhales shakily, trying to hide how unnerved she is with a tiny laugh. “Wow. You sure you’re not a profiler?”

“Sorry. Spencer calls it my ‘superpower’. He says I have a ‘disconcerting amount of emotional intelligence’.”

“I think he might be right.”

“Sorry,” she says again. She hasn’t let go of Emily’s hand and she gives it a feeble squeeze. “I just wanted you to know it isn’t the same, not telling him that I was still alive right away. And I don’t think he’ll be angry like he was when you first came back. I think he’ll understand. And he wouldn’t want you to feel guilty.”

Emily hasn’t even seen the two of them in the same room yet and she can already see why Maeve and Spencer have such a strong connection. She’s smart and can probably carry an intellectual conversation better than most of the other people in Spencer’s life, but where he frequently lacks the ability to vocalize his emotions, she makes up for that by not needing him to.

“I can see why he loves you.”

-

_ Spencer. Spencer. Spencer. Spencer. _

Someone’s saying his name, over and over. He can’t see. He’s so heavy.

“Spencer. Spence.” He wakes with a start and his whole body jolts upward. “No, no no, it’s okay.” He blinks very fast, struggling to bring his surroundings into focus.

“Just lay back. You’re okay.” He recognizes JJ’s features as they sharpen into view and he stops trying to sit up, letting her hands ease him back down against the mattress. He searches her face with his eyes, still alarmed that she woke him, considering all the other times he’s been awake everyone has tried to get him to go back to sleep.

“What’s wrong?” he croaks. The blinds to the small window between them and the hallway have been opened, for the first time since he’s been here, and there are people, men, standing on the other side, watching him, why are they watching him, why --

“No, no. Nothing’s wrong, Spence.” JJ puts her hands on his shoulders in a gentle attempt to soothe. “We just have something we need you to see, okay? I didn’t want to wake you but it’s really important.”

He doesn’t understand.

“It’s nothing bad. Okay? The nurses are going to move you to another room so you--” She stops when he tenses up beneath her hands. “Hey, hey. Spence. Do you trust me?”

It’s a loaded question. His brain turns it over. His brow furrows but he nods, a hint of fear still in his eyes. JJ breathes out, relaxing a little like she’s relieved at the answer. “I’m not going to let anything bad happen to you.” She looks over her shoulder and motions at the group behind the window, and he follows her gaze and now he thinks he might recognize… Yes, it is, it’s Hotch.  _ Hotch _ . He sounds it out silently. And next to him:  _ Rossi _ , his brain supplies. Two ambiguous figures in green scrubs enter the room and he grabs JJ’s hand. They’re shifting things, below and beside him, parts of the bed, and then he feels it move beneath him.

He still doesn’t understand.

_ Do you trust me? _ JJ’s smile is reassuring, bigger and maybe even... happier, than what it usually looks like, here, in this room, but now that room is moving -- no,  _ he’s _ moving, the bed is moving. He holds her hand. She holds it back. She stays where he can see her, moving with the bed. He can feel people looking at him. He shrinks back against the mattress.

They move a very short distance down the hall and then make a sharp turn into a new room. He squints at the sudden increase of natural light, pouring in through the window across from the door. Emily’s standing inside, next to someone else who’s sitting on a bed like his, someone who looks a lot like…

Maeve.

No, wait, not Maeve.

That doesn’t make sense.

He doesn’t understand.

He hears himself make a sound of distress, a strangled cry from deep in his throat. At some point he must have let go of JJ’s hand because he’s clutching fistfuls of blanket and mattress on both sides of his body, trying to both pull himself upright and push himself off the bed at the same time.

~~ Maeve ~~ The woman his brain is trying to convince him is Maeve slides off the bed. “Don’t hurt yourself. I’ll come to you.”

_ Maeve. _ He goes completely still at the sound of her voice. It washes over him like a wave in the ocean, warming and chilling him all at once. It’s Maeve, it has to be Maeve, he knows that voice better than he knows his own, but--

The bed wheels just a little closer to where  ~~ Maeve it’s not Maeve it can’t be Maeve ~~ the girl who sounds  ~~ too much like her not to be her but how can it be her it can’t be her ~~ just like Maeve is stepping toward him. This isn’t right it can’t be real it isn’t real  _ don’t you trust me _ it’s just a trick. It’s a mean hateful trick, how can they do this to him  ~~_ don’t you trust me _ ~~ ? Maybe he’s the one doing it. Maybe it’s in his head.

He doesn’t understand.

~~ Maeve ~~ Not-Maeve -- Maeve? -- puts a hand out and he recoils, flat to the mattress with his hands plastered over his face. “Stop -- Please -- I can’t--”

“Spence, it’s okay,” he hears JJ murmur from behind him. He shakes his head frantically behind his hands.

“No, I’m -- dreaming, I’m h-halluc… It’s not… They must have -- they gave me s-something--” One of his hands lowers, reaching instinctively for the needle in his arm. He gasps when a set of thin fingers slips between his instead. He opens his eyes and she’s close, she’s very very close, her face right in front of his and it’s her, it has to be  ~~ it can’t be her ~~ because he saw her  _ in there _ and he remembers that, he’ll never forget it  ~~ stop it, right now ~~ .

“It’s me, Spencer. I’m right here.” Her voice itself is like a drug to him. He feels weak just hearing it.

It just isn’t possible.

He doesn’t understand.

“No--”

“Yes, Spencer.” Her hand is on his face. He looks at her even though he’s terrified of doing so.

She looks like Maeve. She sounds like Maeve. He thinks she might be Maeve. He doesn’t understand.

But then, suddenly, he thinks maybe he does, and she seems to see it on his face as soon as that happens and she nods. He’s crying. He reaches up and grabs the hand resting on his cheek. His fingers tighten around hers as he grapples with what his brain is trying to tell him.

“They s-said…” He trails off as soon as he realizes what he’s saying. Why did he believe them? He’d just accepted it, blindly, even though -- “I never saw…”

She nods again. “That’s right.”

It’s her. It’s her, it’s her it’sherit’sherit’sher --

“Oh my god,” he chokes out. His shaking hands rise to both sides of her face. “M-Maeve -- you’re really--” She’s here. She’s alive. She’s here, she’s right in front of him, she’s holding him, they’re  _ touching -- _

“I’m right here.”

She’s crying too. She climbs up onto the bed beside him. His heart is racing. He wraps his shaking arms around her. “How…” He follows her gaze to the doorway, where the whole team has gathered without him noticing.

He doesn’t know how they possibly could have known she was alive when he had been so sure she was gone forever. Or how they brought her back to him so quickly. But it doesn’t matter. He’s crying too hard at this point to say anything else so he just nods, over and over and over and over. He doesn’t have to speak for them to hear him, loud and clear.

_ Thank you. _

Spencer turns his head and buries it in the curve between Maeve’s shoulder and neck. She whispers something in his ear, fingers cradled around the back of his head.

“Alright guys, this is private,” Emily says. “Everybody out.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH!!! okay so now that you guys officially know Maeve is alive and well and happily reunited with Spencer in this fic I can finally have my mini-rant about how ridiculous I still to this day think it is that the CM writers wrote in Spencer meeting the love of his life and finding someone who supposedly completes him etc... and then had her barbarically killed off so that we could have angsty!Spencer back instead of happy!Spencer... like IK me being bothered by this isn't exactly original but come on lol if you make a running list of all the shitty things that happen to Spencer throughout the series and then compare it to a list of things that happen to literally any other character his list is like twice as long. Spencer and Maeve deserved sooo much better. like I dunno if I'll ever get over it and lowkey fuck the CM writers. like did they even try? seriously.
> 
> anyway!! not that I'm exactly painting a rainbows and butterflies experience for our two lovers in this fic but like. obviously there are ways to write angsty!Spencer into the script without almost giving him eternal bliss and then yanking it back half a season later. just saying...
> 
> thanks as usual for reading!! and thanks SO MUCH for all the comments I got after posting the last chapter!! chapter 4 was a long one but I tried to hurry as much as possible to edit it so I could put it up after all the comments on chapter 3. :) love ya xx


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello!!! my brain has been a little mushy for a few days but I've been trying to get chapter 5 post-ready regardless so hopefully it's okay and doesn't have too many typos or anything haha. also I might start posting a liiiittle less often than I've been posting these first few chapters, just so everyone's aware, because I had chapters 1-7 pre-written before I started posting the fic here and I haven't really been adding to the new chapters as quickly as I've been editing and posting pre-written chapters (oopsie)...
> 
> also just a trigger warning for this chapter, the team at one point goes over some of the specifics of Spencer and Maeve's medical files, so I wanted to TW for descriptions of their injuries and some details of their assaults. just so everyone is aware before we get into it.
> 
> as always thank you so much for reading, thank you so so much if you've left a kudos, and thank you so so SO much if you've been leaving comments, because as always every single one of them makes my day and I do my best to reply to all of them to make sure you guys know how much I appreciate them!! love you, hope you like this chapter xx

Hotch would much rather be organizing everyone into shifts and sending them back to the motel for some much-needed sleep, but instead they’ve taken over approximately three-quarters of the waiting area across from the nurse’s desk, much to the staff’s poorly-hidden chagrin. They’ve all grown a bit cross from lack of sleep, especially Morgan and Prentiss whose moods seem especially dour. But it’s JJ who asks if they’re going to sit down to discuss the case, and instead of protesting their exhaustion everyone just turns to Hotch with expectant looks upon their faces.

Reid and Maeve’s new hospital room is right across the hall, which Hotch is thankful for since none of them really want to be too far away right now. Rossi and Morgan go down to the parking lot to fetch the case files they’ve brought over from DC, and for the nine minutes or so that the two are gone the rest of them just watch through the window of their friend’s hospital room. Maeve and Spencer haven’t moved from Spencer’s bed, but he’s calmed down enough for them to carry on a mostly one-sided conversation, with Spencer nodding and his lips moving every so often in response to whatever she’s saying. Her uncasted hand is tightly intertwined with one of his, and every so often he lifts them to his face and presses her knuckles to his lips.

Hotch feels a bit like they’re intruding by watching what is obviously, as Emily had stated before, a private moment, but he can’t seem to tear his eyes away, and neither can anyone else. He doesn’t know the exact statistical odds that had been stacked against them ever seeing Reid alive again -- though ironically, he knows Reid would have been able to give them an exact number -- but Hotch is always ever the realist, and truth be told, after the first week or so he knew it didn’t look good. It feels like a miracle now, to all of them, that they’re sitting here spying on a living, breathing Dr. Spencer Reid.

He thinks Maeve has caught them looking at least twice by the time Morgan and Rossi return. Spencer doesn’t seem to be able to tear his eyes away from Maeve’s face long enough to notice anything else.

“Alright,” Hotch says, sounding more grim than he means to. Garcia reaches down to plug her laptop into the wall and JJ starts to pass around papers, two different stacks for each of them.

“The medical reports,” she murmurs, when Prentiss looks at her quizzically. Garcia makes a small noise of distress, nervously shuffling her set of papers over the laptop keys.

Hotch exhales and glances around at each member of the group. “I know this is going to be hard. The director has called twice already suggesting this case be assigned to another team. I’ve assured him that the BAU is capable of remaining unbiased and that we are still the most equipped to work this case.” He sits back in his chair. “He’s offered us the benefit of the doubt for now, but we’re on a short leash. So before we get started, if any of you feel that this is too much to handle, there will be no judgment from me or anyone else. But that is something I need to know now.”

Everyone stays quiet, even Garcia. He looks around the circle again, but they all meet his gaze, one by one, with a steady one of their own.

“Okay. Let’s get started.”

The medical reports are read silently, everyone scanning the pages at their own pace. Emily opts to read Maeve’s first, rationalizing it as ‘easing herself in’ to what she’s sure is about to be an uncomfortable read. The first page details bruises, scarring, a few fresher scrapes up her back, and her broken arm; a spiral fracture -- something she’d have gotten from having the limb twisted, something she likely hadn’t gotten by accident. She turns the page to find a rape kit write-up detailing vaginal trauma but no fluids or DNA. She glances across their small circle, frowning.

“Hotch.”

He looks up at her.

“Was--” She lowers her voice to make sure only the group can hear. “Was Maeve not tested for STDs yesterday?”

“The center we were at didn’t have all of the resources necessary for the tests on site,” Hotch murmurs. “We were lucky enough to find a female doctor who could perform the exam. I’ve informed her and the staff here that she still needs to have the tests done. Probably later this afternoon.”

Emily nods and returns to the forms. She sees the tox screen, positive for fentanyl and phenobarbital, same as Spencer, but not dilaudid, and Maeve only had trace levels of the drugs left in her system. She finishes with Maeve’s file sooner than she expected and she tries to keep her breathing even as she shuffles Spencer’s papers to the top of the stack. Offending words and phrases leap off the page, assaulting her eyes, and she blinks very hard, waiting for her brain to rearrange them into something that makes sense.

She familiarizes herself with the surface wounds first. There are photos to accompany the somber descriptions, and she studies each one of them unenthusiastically. Deep bruising on his hips, thighs, chest, torso abdomen, arms, shoulders… neck. Most of them are just masses in various shades of mottled blue, purple, red, and yellow, but a few of them are in the distinct outline of fingers, hands, and she feels that familiar surge of rage wash through her.

A more zoomed-out photo of his entire back paints a broader picture of the scarring and the fresher lacerations interlaced. A few of the scars, as well as a couple of barely-healed lesions, are particularly appalling, and many of them clearly would have needed stitches if they hadn’t already healed over. As it were, Spencer received no stitches upon intake, suggesting whatever they had done to cut him this deeply hadn’t been repeated within the last week, maybe two. The rest of the cuts and scars aren’t as deep, and splay across the skin haphazardly on both his front and back sides, in a pattern that indicates a multi-tailed whip or similar tool.

There are photos of his wrists and ankles, the scarring, bruising, and indentations made by harsh restraints. The document doesn’t mention the brand behind his ear, but it does mention a chest x-ray that shows barely-healed fractures in  _ four _ ribs. There’s a rundown of his malnourishment, severe dehydration, electrolyte imbalance. Since he’d been unconscious during his intake -- definitely a blessing in disguise, as he never would have been calm enough to have these photos and x-rays taken otherwise -- he hadn’t been weighed and that line has been left blank. Emily doesn’t need him to get on a scale to know he has to be down at least 30 pounds from where he was six months ago.

She turns to the next page and can’t suppress the grimace that twists her face when she sees it’s another rape kit report. If she didn’t want to see the rest of the papers she certainly doesn’t want to see this.

_ Scarring _ , the paper flashes, taunting her.  _ Tearing. Severe rectal trauma. _

She closes her eyes for a moment and breathes, in, and out. In, and out. Her heart sinks when she returns to the page and sees the next line: negative for fluids and DNA. She feels a little bit better, however, when she sees that every single STD and STI test was negative as well.

She lowers the file, exhaling slowly and fighting nausea. Hotch and Rossi have already finished reading and look back at her grimly. Everyone else is still working their way down their respective stacks. JJ’s expression is deliberately unreadable, but Penelope isn’t doing much to stop the tears that are rolling down her face, and Morgan’s jaw is tightly clenched, anger written clearly all over his face.

When they’re finally all finished, the pages lowered to their laps or tucked carefully from sight, everyone seems to breathe out the same collective sigh. It’s Emily who speaks first.

“Hotch, did Maeve tell you how she got the broken arm?”

“She was being moved upstairs and overheard one of the unsubs say that the FBI was ‘close’. She managed to free herself and made it outside before they caught up to her. She said one of them grabbed her by the forearm and twisted it behind her back until she heard the bone snap.”

“Good girl,” JJ mutters. Emily leans back in her chair, nodding agreement. “Even after almost six months of being held captive by them, she still fought.” She glances down at the loose papers scattered on the center table. “I mean, I think it’s pretty clear at this point that Spence was the focus here. It’s almost like she was a... a convenient afterthought, or something. They used her to make Spencer vulnerable so he would let his guard down and be easier to abduct and control.”

“There’s something else,” Emily murmurs, looking up at Hotch. “If there’s a message being sent here, or messages, she’s part of it.”

JJ frowns and follows Emily’s gaze, as do everyone else. Hotch nods. “We should talk about what Maeve told me in the ambulance on the way here.” His expression is more grim than usual and he takes a breath before continuing. Everyone has leaned in a little, save for Emily. It’s not often they see Hotch show such visible aversion. “It seems that when she and Reid were both being held in the first location, they made sure Maeve was present when he was being tortured.”

Eyes go wide, eyebrows go up. The whole circle is speechless for a moment. Then JJ looks at Emily, who quietly informs them, “Yesterday Spencer told me ‘they made her watch’.” She takes a deep breath. “I think the point was for him to know she was there, not to hurt her by making sure she saw it.”

JJ looks sick. Morgan looks like he might put both of his fists through something solid. Penelope looks like she’s actively trying not to listen anymore.

“Maeve was very open with me at first and clearly wanted, and still wants, to help us catch the unsubs, but she grew increasingly uncomfortable when I tried to ask her what exactly she saw them do to Reid. She said she didn’t feel comfortable answering for him unless she could know for a fact he was okay with it.”

“She’s protecting his dignity,” JJ whispers. Everyone looks at her and she flushes, sitting up straighter and blinking very hard against the tears that have welled up in her eyes.

“Yes,” Rossi agrees. As if on cue, they all look again to the window. Maeve’s forehead is resting on Spencer’s shoulder, and he’s looking down at her, fingers slowly tracing up and down her arm, and he’s -- yes, he is, Emily thinks he really might be -- smiling. Just a little. Just a tiny, tiny bit. But he is.

JJ seems to recover her composure after seeing that, and she clears her throat. “So Maeve’s not the target. But they went to quite a bite of trouble making us think she was, at first.”

“Well--” Morgan taps his fingertips together. “--most of that we now know was to make it look like her stalker had taken her at the time, and to throw Reid off balance.”

They’re all silent for a moment, reviewing what they know about Maeve’s disappearance in their head. Just hours after Reid’s disappearance what they had thought was a lead on his location turned up the bodies of Bobby Putnam and Diane Turner. Once they realized Bobby was the ex-fiance they had been unable to locate when Maeve first went missing they dove headfirst into the victimology, hoping desperately it would lead them to Spencer. Instead it led them to the realization that Diane had been Maeve’s stalker all along. And since she was dead, and Reid and Maeve were still nowhere to be found, it was likely she had either been uninvolved in the abductions or part of a team that discarded her once she was no longer of use to them.

“What if…” Emily looks around at all of them. “Reid said Maeve thought the stalker had let up beginning about two weeks before her disappearance. Is there a chance our unsubs figured out Diane was the stalker and held her and Bobby hostage until they’d successfully pulled off both abductions? Considering everything else we know they’re capable of, they might have had the skills to track her down -- I mean, the team would have figured it out, too, if Maeve had allowed Spencer to get involved earlier.”

Morgan frowns. “You think they were holding four people at the same time time? In different locations? That’s a lot of hostages to control at once.”

“Except…” Emily holds up a finger. “Bobby and Diane had drugs in their system, too. Fentanyl and phenobarbital, same as Spencer and Maeve. And we know these guys are skilled at keeping their hostages in check.”

“Okay, but still, why wait so long to kill them?” JJ interjects. “They didn’t necessarily need anything from them to get to Maeve or Spence, they just needed the stalker out of the way.”

“But,” Rossi says, “killing them immediately would have created the very different problem of having to hide or dispose of bodies. Killing them just after Maeve and Spencer’s abductions would make it hard for us to figure out why they were dead and therefore who killed them and how it all fit into the larger plan.”

“Forensic countermeasure.” Emily nods.

“Excuse me?”

They all look up to where one of the nurses, the young one -- Hotch thinks her introduction to him earlier was Nurse Topping -- is standing behind Morgan and Prentiss’s chairs. She looks around at all of them, a little nervous, like she’s not sure who she should address. The staff has probably all taken orders from each one of them at least once at this point.

“Mr. Reid has asked to have his catheter removed.”

Every eyebrow in the circle goes up. Garcia’s face has turned a bright shade of pink. Hotch turns to look through the window again. Spencer meets his gaze through the pane of glass and his face flushes a hue slightly lighter than Garcia’s before looking away.

Hotch clears his throat. “He asked? Out loud?”

“He had help from Miss Donovan. It seems like he’d enjoy the ability to move about on his own, like she can.”

Hotch hesitates, looking around at his team. No one says a word, though Emily has the faintest hint of a smile on her face. “Is he... strong enough, to stand and walk without assistance?”

The nurse chews on the inside of her mouth, head tilting slightly to one side, considering. “He’s not about to run a marathon tomorrow, but he’s already improved significantly since I first saw him yesterday, and his vitals look good. I think he’ll be alright, as long as someone’s around to keep an eye on him.”

“If that’s what he wants, and you think it’s all right.” Hotch looks at Emily. “Prentiss, check first to see whether he needs someone else in the room.”

“And it’s Doctor,” Morgan mutters, when Prentiss and the nurse start to step away.

Topping looks back at him. “Sorry?”

“It’s  _ Doctor _ Reid.”

She nods, quickly, thrown off-balance for a moment. “Of… of course. My mistake.”

JJ smirks, sitting back in her chair and folding her arms. “Rawr.” Morgan shoots her a warning glance and she looks away, re-stacking the papers in her lap before dropping them onto the center table. “So…” She hesitates, face going slack again. “No fluids, no DNA, no… STDs, thank god…” She sighs. “So they used condoms. The sexual assault was likely a calculated component of the torture, not a need-based impulse.”

“Maybe in Reid’s case, but what about Maeve?” Morgan interjects. “If she was really just being used as a tool to further Reid’s suffering, and they clearly didn’t put her through that same level of torture, why assault her, too?”

“Convenient afterthought,” JJ says, repeating her words from earlier. “For her, it was probably just because she was there.”

Rossi utters a low  _ hmm _ sound under his breath. “Do we know if she was assaulted before  _ and _ after being moved between locations, or just one or the other?”

Hotch shakes his head. “I’m not sure.”

“If she was only assaulted after she was moved, that would make JJ’s theory more likely. The unsubs would have been focused on Reid when they were being held together, but once removed from that focus…” Rossi doesn’t elaborate, but the collective grimace indicates that they all get the picture. Hotch looks toward the window again. The privacy blinds have been pulled shut.

Morgan sighs. “Alright, so if this is about sending a message, then who’s this message supposed to be for? Reid? Us, the BAU? The FBI as a whole?”

“Maybe all of the above?” Rossi suggests.

“Don’t forget about the numbers,” Emily says, stepping over several pairs of legs to settle back into her chair. “He’s fine. Stood up on his own and everything.” They all look toward the window again. The blinds have been reopened and Maeve and Spencer are both sitting on his bed with their legs hanging over the side, watching the nurse secure Spencer’s IV bag to a rolling pole like Maeve’s. Spencer’s face is a bit drained of color, but other than that he still looks calm from where they’re sitting.

“I know,” Emily murmurs, like she can read their minds. They all look back at her and she shrugs. “He’s been incredibly calm with her in the room, compared to before.”

“What did you mean about ‘the numbers’?” Hotch asks, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees.

“Oh--” She shakes her head. “I forgot, sorry, we didn’t mention it before. Morgan and I realized something yesterday. The last replicator victim you found had to have been killed, according to the ME’s report, on April 8th, which was exactly 35 days after Spencer first went missing.”

JJ frowns. “So?”

“So, that seemed like an arbitrary number, until we realized Blake was shot exactly 175 days after Spencer went missing, and 175 just so happens to be a multiple of 35. 35 times 5 is 175.”

“That could be a coincidence,” Hotch says. “You think the number 35 has some sort of significance to the case?”

“Or the numbers 5 or 175, or both,” Morgan replies.

A door closes nearby, and they all look up to see Nurse Topping walking away from them down the hall. On the other side of the window, Maeve and Spencer are doing slow laps around the room, Spencer gripping his IV pole tightly with one hand and Maeve’s right elbow with his other. They all watch for a moment to make sure Spencer doesn’t collapse into the linoleum, before Hotch murmurs,

“I think Dave and I should talk to you about the crime scenes now.”

There’s a very still thirty seconds or so of silence as everyone waits, dreading what he’s about to say.

“I’ll start with the second location since we found the least there.” He quickly details the building layout; the way Maeve had been restrained identically to how they’d found Reid; and the complete lack of any personal items that might belong to the unsubs, or any items or devices that may have been part of the torture.

He gives them a moment before continuing. “Just like in Maeve’s location, we were unable at Reid’s location to find any personal items belonging to the unsubs or any obvious clues as to where they might be now. The only items in the entire building were the frame and restraints where we found Reid; the chair and the metal box in the main room; and three chairs in a small room on the side of the building where we found Reid. On the corridor opposite to where Reid was held there was a similar fencing setup, likely where they kept Maeve when she was being held there.”

He pauses again. “CSI tested every likely surface for DNA but the results still aren’t back. We are also waiting for results on the blood found on the chair in the main room and on the inside of the metal box.” Every single face in the circle has gone pale, but Hotch doesn’t wait before finishing, “There were also eye bolts screwed into one of the walls. CSI will be testing the blood found on that wall as well.”

Emily’s brain conjures the unwelcome image of her friend strung up by the wrists against a dirty concrete wall, screaming while lash after lash falls across his naked shoulders -- His thin body folded and stuffed into a box, the lid slamming down --

Hotch clears his throat. She looks up at him, then around at the group. She’s pretty sure everyone else has just envisioned the same hateful images she has. She feels like she’s going to be sick.

“Alright,” Hotch says finally, after taking in each of their nauseated expressions. “We’re all up to speed for now. It’s going to be a few more days until Reid and Maeve can be cleared for travel. Right now I want to make sure everyone gets some sleep so we can approach this case with clear heads. Prentiss, Morgan, Garcia, I want you to go back to the motel. Get some rest. Don’t come back until…” He checks his watch. “Six PM. No arguments,” he adds, seeing Morgan about to protest.

The three of them stand without another word, Morgan and Prentiss waiting for Garcia to pack her laptop away before moving down the hall as one unit. Morgan slings a protective arm around Garcia’s shoulders and she says something in his ear that Hotch can’t make out. Whatever it is, it causes his posture to relax slightly, and Prentiss ducks her head in a way that suggests she’s trying not to smile.

Rossi says “Coffee” and heads down the opposite end of the hall. JJ leans forward and starts moving papers around, sorting them into stacks to slip back into the boxes.

“JJ.” She stops and looks up at him. “If you need to get some sleep as well--”

She flashes him a tight, forced smile. “I’m alright, Hotch.”

“JJ, I know the last 24 hours have been rough on all four of you. Reid just seems to be more comfortable with you and Prentiss than anyone else which means one of you needs to stay close.”

“And I understand--”

“But I need  _ everyone _ taking care of themselves right now. That includes you. So I want you to rest for a while. If anything happens, I will wake you.”

She sighs, following his gaze back to the window. Spencer has gotten back into bed. Maeve is perched at his side with her back to them, smoothing her fingers through his hair. “Is that an order?”

He looks at her sharply. “It’s about to be.”

She sighs and finishes tucking all of their files away before slouching back into the plastic armchair behind her, pulling her legs up and trying to get comfortable. She goes back to watching through the window, aware of Hotch’s stern gaze on her, trying to make sure she’s settling down. She can’t get over the way Spencer’s looking at Maeve, the almost peaceful, almost, dare she say it,  _ happy _ , look on his face. It’s enough to make her think, for just one small, naive little second, that maybe everything is going to be okay.

-

A sharp ringing wakes Morgan with a jolt and he groans, lifting his head from the motel bedspread. He reaches for the nightstand, straining and fumbling with one hand until he successfully pulls his phone off its charger and brings it to his ear.

“Hello?” he grunts.

“Morgan.”

Hotch’s voice is like an ice water bath. He’s instantly awake, swinging his feet over the side of the bed. “What’s wrong?”

“I need you back at the hospital.”

“Hotch?”

“Right now.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baaaaaaaack! thanks so much for your patience after last weekend's cliffhanger and especially thanks for all of your angry comments about said cliffhanger hahaha! I immensely enjoyed getting those notifications. I've always thought the only feeling better than getting a review/comment on a piece of work is getting a fired-up review/comment after ending something on a cliffhanger because that's how you know your readers are engaged with your work and excited to keep reading it! and I definitely felt that this week and it's definitely been helping me with the weird kinda writers-blockish feeling I've been experiencing lately so thank you! hopefully this chapter doesn't disappoint. be sure to let me know what you think, and as always thanks for reading, thanks if you left kudos, and thanks again to everyone who's been leaving comments! :)

“Morgan.” Hotch’s voice is growing harsher, more urgent. “How fast can you get back to the hospital?”

“I--” The clock on the nightstand flashes 1:28 at him, less than two hours since he’d gone to sleep. He’d stripped down to a clean pair of boxers and an undershirt, stuck his phone on the charger, and passed out without even getting under the covers. “Six minutes. Maybe five.” He puts Hotch on speaker so he can throw on a clean set of clothes. “What’s wrong?” he repeats.

“Are you in the car yet?”

He double-checks for his badge, gun, wallet, and keys and lets the door to his room slam shut behind him. “Let me get Prentiss and--”

“Don’t wake them. I just need you to get here.”

He stops for a second, incredibly confused, then does a quick 180 and unlocks the SUV parked closest to his room. “Are you gonna tell me what’s going on?” He cranks the engine before he takes the phone off speaker, making sure Hotch hears. The tires screech against the pavement as he pulls out of the parking lot.

“Reid fell asleep again after you left. While he was out I sent Maeve upstairs for the tests we couldn’t have done at the other hospital. She seemed uncomfortable so I sent JJ with her to make her feel safer.”

“And Reid woke up right after she left to find her gone.” He can see the hospital, just a little further down the street. “Hotch, JJ is in the building, why haven’t you gone up to get her? He’s not even comfortable with me in the room--”

“No, Morgan, trust me. He wants you.”

He turns the wheel, hard, and pulls into the parking lot. “Forgive me if I have a hard time believing that.” He puts the car in park and kills the engine.

“Are you here?”

“Walking in.”

“Reid was frantic from the moment he woke up. He immediately went into hysterics and pulled out his IV, which of course got the attention of every staff member on the floor.”

Morgan winces, clearing the stairs two at a time. “So they tried to sedate him? And you stopped them?”

“I--” He bursts through the door to the third floor. Hotch sees him and hangs up, waiting for Morgan to make it down the hallway.

“Still not sure why I’m the one who--”

“Listen,” Hotch interrupts. There’s a piece of paper in his hand. “The nurses came in, clearly prepared to sedate and restrain him again. He was…” The hint of a grimace enters Hotch’s expression and he pauses for a second. “He was screaming. Begging them not to. He started babbling about his medical proxy -- he said ‘he won’t let you do this to me, please just ask him’ -- and that’s when I was able to step in and intervene.”

“Okay, because you’re his proxy. So why am I--”

“No, Morgan.” Hotch shoves the piece of paper at him. “ _ You _ are Reid’s proxy.”

Morgan snatches the file and scans it quickly. There it is, in bold print: his name, right below Spencer’s. Medical proxy: Derek Morgan. A deep frown creases his brow. He looks past Hotch to the closed door to Reid’s room. “I don’t understand. Gideon was his proxy before, I figured when he left... Why wouldn’t he tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

“Hotch, this doesn’t mean it’s a good idea for me to go in there. The last time I was in the room with him he was terrified of me. And who’s to say if he’s hysterical he doesn’t think he’s asking for Gideon or someone else entirely?”

“Morgan.” Hotch’s voice is stern, his face now painted with a distinct we-don’t-have-time-for-this look. “Reid’s mind is as strong as it is brilliant. He may be confused about where he is and who intends to hurt him, but we have no reason to believe that he doesn’t remember who you are or what you mean to him. He’s in distress and his base instinct is to seek protection. He asked for you because he sees you as his protector, which is why he made you his medical proxy. It’s not a mistake, he asked for you, now please get in there before the doctor takes over and the situation becomes even more unpleasant.”

Morgan exhales. “Yeah. Okay.”

He hears Spencer’s heavy, ragged breathing as soon as he steps into the room, along with the panicked, unintelligible words he’s whimpering under his breath. Spencer has sandwiched himself into the corner furthest from the doorway, his entire body curled into a tight ball. He hears the door open and his head jerks up, frightened eyes finding Morgan’s face. Morgan gives the door a gentle push so that it shuts behind him again. He thinks he sees something in Spencer’s face before he looks away again, a flash of recognition, or relief, maybe. His feet slide forward and his legs relax a bit, and his arms move from hugging his knees to hugging his torso, instead.

Morgan sees the flash of red when Spencer moves his right arm, blood from where he’s yet again torn a needle from his vein. He sighs. “They’re about to run out of places to put that needle, kid.”

He’s surprised by Spencer’s immediate recoil, not when he starts talking, but at the end of the sentence, as soon as the word ‘kid’ leaves his lips. He frowns. ‘Pretty boy’ makes sense, but why would this nickname have become off-limits too?

He takes a couple of steps in Spencer’s direction, testing for a reaction. Spencer doesn’t move, but his eyes stay glued to Derek’s feet as he walks. “I’m sorry,” he whispers, his voice shaking.

Morgan stops, his frown deepening. “What?”

Spencer flinches. “You said not to pull it out...”

Morgan’s eyes shut briefly, and he exhales. Spencer may have asked for him, may even subconsciously see Morgan as his protector like Hotch said, but his brain is also still turning over the last thing Morgan said to him, which was a direct order not to pull out his IV for a third time. Considering everything, it makes sense for him to worry about Morgan’s reaction to his “disobedience”.

He takes a few more steps, Spencer watching nervously, and then slowly lowers himself into a cross-legged position on the floor, about three feet away from where Spencer sits.

“Spence,” he says finally. “You know where you are?”

Spencer bites his lip, still shaking quite fiercely, but he nods, eyes staring down at the floor.

“You know who I am?”

He worries that question may be too broad to help him figure out where Spencer’s head is at, but Spencer nods again, this time without hesitation.

“Okay. That’s good. I…” He tries to think of the gentlest way to phrase what he’s trying to say. “I did ask you not to pull the IV out again, that’s true.” Spencer’s jaw clenches. “But I’m guessing you woke up alone and forgot where you were for a moment. That you were scared, and you reacted out of instinct.”

Spencer’s expression is guarded, unsure, but he nods yet again.

“Nobody’s angry with you. You’re not in trouble.” He hesitates. “I know you were trying to protect yourself. And I know that when you were in... that place, needles in your arm meant being drugged against your will.”

Tears spring to Spencer’s eyes. “I don’t want to talk about that, please--”

“Okay, okay.” Derek holds his hands up. “I’m sorry. I’m not asking you to talk about it.”

Spencer’s fingernails have dug into the skin of his upper arms. He lets go of himself with one shaking hand and rubs it quickly across his face.

“We shouldn’t have left you alone in here like that. Not even for a second. I’m sorry you woke up alone, k--Spencer.” He catches himself before using the nickname. Spencer doesn’t seem to notice. His cautious eyes flick back to Derek’s face, as if sizing him up, before his gaze wanders again.

“Maeve is fine,” Morgan says, realizing Spencer probably still doesn’t know where she is. “She went to have some medical tests done. JJ went with her so she wouldn’t be scared. They didn’t want to wake you, but someone should have let you know.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, but Derek can see him start to relax, the hint of relief in his features.

“You know talking about it can’t hurt you.”

Spencer looks up at him sharply, fear flashing in his eyes. Derek leans forward.

“As long as I have anything to say about it  _ no one _ else is going to hurt you. And I think you know that too, in spite of whatever it is you’re not telling me about why I specifically have been scaring the living daylights out of you since we brought you here.” Spencer’s cheeks flush and he averts his eyes again, a weak shudder passing through him. “Because you still asked for me when you needed help. And apparently…”

He’s still holding the piece of paper Hotch gave him and he turns it over in his hands. Spencer hears it rustle and raises his head, following the movements with his eyes.

“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t surprised. Have I been your proxy since Gideon left?”

Spencer’s face has paled. He looks scared to say anything, like he can’t figure out if Morgan is displeased at this discovery.

“Long time not to mention it,” Morgan says, trying to keep his tone light. Spencer still doesn’t say anything. Morgan leans forward again and Spencer eyes him cautiously.

“Listen, k--Spencer.” Damn, that’s going to be hard to get used to. “Whenever you did this, however long ago it was, you trusted me to take care of you anytime you weren’t able to speak for yourself, so much so that you didn’t even tell me you were doing it. And you can. You can trust me.”

Spencer exhales shakily, his dry lips parting like he has something he needs to say but doesn’t know if he should. Morgan waits, watching the conflict flicker across his face as he tries to decide.

“They were going to tie me down again, they came in with the…” Spencer makes a vague gesture with his hand and Morgan gathers he’s talking about the restraints. His voice is so low Morgan can barely hear him, and every syllable shakes. “They had a, a syringe, out, I… I tried to stop, I tried to be… s-still, I asked them not to, but…”

Morgan has never wanted so badly to put his hand on Spencer’s shoulder as he does right now, though he thinks he’d also settle for giving each of the nurses who’d scared him a good shake. But he can’t do either of these things so he grips his own knee tightly with one hand and breathes a long breath out.

“I am… so sorry,” he says again. “I’m so sorry that happened.” Spencer drops his gaze to the floor again, his eyes red from suppressing tears. “Listen to me. No one else,  _ no one _ , is going to do that to you. I will  _ personally _ see to it. No one’s gonna sedate you against your will, no one’s gonna tie you down, to the bed or anything else. Even if I have to personally threaten to arrest every single person who works in this building. Okay?”

Reid looks up, finally meeting Morgan’s gaze. His lower lip is trembling but the relief is clear in his eyes.

Morgan takes a breath and a pause. “They’re gonna want to come back in and replace that IV, but I was thinking maybe we could just sit here for a bit longer first, take a little breather.”

Spencer nods, in short, jerky motions. He looks away again, staring absently into the hospital wall. They’re both quiet for a moment, until he takes a short breath, like he’s going to say something, then slowly releases it, anxiety twisting his expression. Morgan waits, watching his friend’s face closely. Spencer glances up and flushes again when he sees Morgan looking.

“It’s n-not,” he starts, then breaks off, taking another, deeper, shakier breath. “You, it’s not --  _ you _ didn’t, it was -- they… I-I…”

“Hey,” Morgan interrupts, trying to stop the disorganized avalanche of words before Spencer hyperventilates. “It’s okay. You don’t have to talk about it if you’re not ready, remember?”

Spencer raises his hand to his mouth, chewing on his thumbnail and staring down at his lap. Derek sighs. “Listen…” He turns the medical form over in his hands, folding the paper in half once, then again, toying with the creases as he thinks.

“Spencer.” He leans in again. “All this paper means is that if some doctor thinks you’re unable to speak for yourself, then I can speak for you. But even if every nurse and doctor in here thinks that you are incapacitated, somehow,  _ I _ know that that’s not true.” He thinks he sees surprise flash across Spencer’s face. “Because I know you, Reid. I know you’ve been hurt, very badly, you’ve been through a lifetime of trauma, but  _ I know you. _ And I know whatever happened to you in the past six months didn’t break you. The Spencer Reid I know is still in there. He’s sitting right here in front of me. I know that.  _ Nothing _ they did to you can take that away.”

Spencer looks up at him then, and he doesn’t look away and he doesn’t stop the tears anymore from falling down his face. Slowly, oh so slowly, his left hand lifts off his lap and slides over the floor until his arm is fully extended.

Morgan really, really hopes he’s not misinterpreting, because Reid was decidedly not a fan of hand-to-hand contact before all of this, and up until this point the last thing he has wanted from Morgan is physical contact. Still, after a split second of hesitation, Derek scoots just a little bit closer, and slowly, just as slowly as Reid had reached out, places his hand on top of his friend’s.

Part of him really expects Spencer to immediately flinch and pull away, but to his surprise he feels the other man’s fingers curl around his own. Spencer tucks his legs back against his body and rests his forehead on his knees, hiding his face while he cries. Morgan sits very, very still, feeling the tears threatening to spill from his own eyes. They sit like that for five, maybe ten more minutes. And Spencer doesn’t let go.

Until the door opens again.

Spencer’s head jerks up and he snatches his hand back to wrap both of his arms around his torso. He relaxes again, however, when he sees Maeve, JJ behind her pushing her wheelchair into the room. He scrambles to stand, and Morgan resists the urge to reach out and steady him when his knees nearly buckle beneath his weight. Surprise hand-holding or not, he’s not about to invade Spencer’s personal space again without permission.

Concern paints Maeve’s face and she reaches behind her, fingers fumbling until they catch on the IV pole that JJ pulls in from the hallway behind them. She lifts herself out of the chair, legs giving a slight wobble before she steps in their direction. “Spencer? What happened, are you okay?”

JJ glances at Morgan, eyebrows raised in silent question. Morgan looks past JJ through the window. Hotch is standing right outside, and so is Spencer’s doctor, a vexed look upon his face as Hotch addresses him sternly.

Maeve crosses the distance between the door and where Spencer stands, clinging to the windowsill for support. She puts her hands on either side of his waist and he shivers, but not in a frightened way. He bends forward to bridge the six-inch height difference between them, says something to her that Morgan can’t make out. She murmurs something soft back and reaches up with one hand, tucks his hair behind his ear.

Spencer wraps a hand around Maeve’s IV pole and she slides one arm around his waist. JJ and Morgan watch as they walk together back to the bed. The sight strikes Morgan in a way he doesn’t quite understand; it makes him terribly happy and terribly sad all at once. He again has to suppress the instinct to reach out and lend a hand as Spencer labors to pull himself up onto the bed.

There’s a light rapping of knuckles against wood from behind them and Spencer’s entire body goes rigid with tension before Morgan can even turn to look. The doctor has stepped into the room, along with a female nurse Morgan hasn’t seen before.

Spencer’s wide, terrified eyes find Morgan’s face, then dart back to the doctor, then back to Morgan. Derek gives him a slight nod, lifting one of his hands in a small, subtle, and hopefully reassuring gesture. JJ doesn’t do or say anything. She’s too busy looking back and forth between them all, trying to decipher the sudden new dynamic between Morgan and Reid and figure out just what exactly is going on.

“So.” The doctor claps his hands together. Spencer flinches at the sound. “We haven’t formally met yet. I’m Dr. Jasper, I’m your primary physician. The nurses told me we had a little incident earlier?”

Spencer rotates his arm, trying to hide where the needle tore through his flesh, face flooding with embarrassment. Morgan’s jaw clenches. He wishes the doctor would at least try to address Reid like an adult and not a petulant child.

“Why don’t we have a look, Mr. Reid?”

Spencer’s face is white as a ghost and he looks desperately at Morgan as the doctor steps toward him. Morgan takes three long strides, placing himself directly between Spencer and Dr. Jasper.

“It’s  _ Doctor _ ,” he growls, placing a hard enunciation on each syllable. Jasper takes a step back, looking flustered. “ _ Doctor _ Spencer Reid.”

Jasper blinks back at him. “Oh -- of course, I… Dr. Reid. Of course.” He shifts weight, suddenly nervous. The nurse looks over her shoulder, like she’s wondering if she should make a run for it.

Morgan holds up the thrice-folded piece of paper and pulls it open, inked side facing out so the doctor can see. “You understand the  _ incident _ in question occurred when  _ Dr. _ Reid was threatened by your nurses with forced sedation and restraints.”

He’s pretty sure he can see the doctor gulp, actually gulp, like a cartoon character. “Well, yes,” he stammers, “but protocol dictates--”

“Protocol?” Morgan interrupts, feeling anger flash through him. He makes eye contact with Hotch through the window and Hotch throws him a warning look. He takes a deep breath. “Protocol,” he says again. “Doc, I recall you being in the room when the circumstances of Dr. Reid’s current medical needs were explained?”

Jasper meets his gaze with uncertainty. “Yes, that’s right.”

“Which is why it astounds me that you would support a decision to forcibly drug and tie down your terrified patient. Protocol, of course, aside.”

The doctor is silent, jaw setting in a mixture of annoyance and chagrin. Morgan holds up the paper again.

“There will be no use of hospital restraints. There will be no use of sedatives unless absolutely necessary and authorized by me. No drugs are to be administered or procedures performed without consent from both myself _and_ Dr. Reid. In fact, no one is so much to lay a finger on Dr. Reid without his consent, and trust me, contrary to what seems to be the common thought amongst the staff here, he is more than capable of giving or withholding that consent. If my stepping in as Dr. Reid’s medical proxy, and _fellow_ _federal agent,_ is necessary to make sure all of these things happen then so be it. But he is in no way incapacitated or incapable of speaking for himself, if you and your staff would exercise just a little bit of patience.”

Jasper looks thoroughly frightened at this point, but that doesn’t stop him from trying one more time. “If we believe Dr. Reid is a danger to himself--”

“He is not.” Morgan meets the doctor’s gaze steadily, trying not to feel too satisfied when Jasper shrinks a little in response. “I’m not telling you how to do your job, Doctor, but it might benefit you to pass along everything I just said to the rest of the hospital staff.” He glances at JJ, who looks thoroughly stunned by his tirade, before lowering his voice and adding, “Because I will personally arrest anyone who threatens or harms Dr. Reid.”

The doctor looks as though he’s trying to decide whether to challenge Morgan again or brush him off. “Agent Morgan,” he says finally. “I assure you, my staff and I mean Dr. Reid no harm, as much as you seem to be implying that we do.”

Hotch is still watching intently through the window. Morgan realizes, too late, that he may have come on a little strong. Not that he really cares.

“That’s good,” he replies. “Then I assume we won’t have a problem from here on out.”

“One would hope,” Jasper replies dryly. “Now if you don’t mind, I think we ought to get to fixing that IV for Dr. Reid?” Every time he says the ‘Dr.’ part of ‘Dr. Reid’ he places excess stress on both syllables. Morgan finds it both incredibly annoying and incredibly satisfying.

Morgan steps aside so he no longer blocks Spencer’s line of sight to the doctor. “That okay with you?”

Spencer nods quickly and averts his eyes, staring down at his hands and picking at the hospital bedding.

“Um.” They all look up at the nurse, who flushes in response. “Dr. Reid also needs to have his bandages changed,” she says, her voice quiet and flustered.

“Alright.” Morgan turns back to Spencer, who grimaces but nods again. “Okay.”

Jasper looks back at Morgan, failing to hide the distaste in his expression. “Then I’ll let Nurse Orville take it from here. If that’s alright with you, Agent?”

Morgan raises his eyebrows at the doctor’s tone, but nods. Some of the tension in Spencer’s body dissipates as Jasper steps out and disappears, throwing Hotch a brief nod on his way out. Hotch nods back and then makes eye contact with JJ, motioning for her just before the nurse pulls the blinds shut. She steps toward the door, and Derek moves to follow her, thinking Spencer might not want so many eyes in the room until the nurse is done.

“Morgan--”

He freezes, and so does JJ, looking over her shoulder at him in shock. He turns around. Spencer stares back at him, silently pleading.

JJ lingers by the door, an incredulous expression painting her face. She doesn’t have to say it, they’re both thinking it -- Spencer said his name. Out loud. For the first time. Spencer… wants him to stay?

“JJ, can you let Hotch know we need some privacy in here until the blinds are reopened?” He asks quietly, watching Spencer closely for his reaction. He’s already relaxing again, relief painting his features.

Spencer wants him to stay.

“Yeah.” JJ shoots Spencer a gentle smile before leaving the room, shutting the door softly behind her.

“Dr. Reid, I’d like to start by cleaning the wound on your arm,” the nurse says. She motions toward the small caking of dried blood in his left forearm, then glances at Morgan, trying to decide whether he’s about to blow up at her, too. Spencer looks at him, as well, and Morgan gives a few slow, reassuring nods. He leans with his back against the wall opposite Spencer’s bed, hooking both of his thumbs through the belt loops of his pants and assuming a relaxed but watchful stance.

The nurse swabs the wound and tapes a small bandage over the blemish. She speaks quietly to Reid as she places the new IV, inside of his right arm this time, talking him through the process. Maeve perches on the edge of the bed, holding his hand, and Spencer keeps his eyes glued to hers, looking away only for the occasional glance in Morgan’s direction, as if to make sure he hasn’t suddenly disappeared.

The nurse starts the process of changing his bandages by asking him to lean forward so she can undo the back of his gown. Spencer complies automatically, almost before she finishes asking. His face is tight, like he’s concentrating, but he still shivers when he feels the fabric pull away from his skin.

She’s finished with his back in minutes and instructs him to lie down. Morgan sees the fear that flashes briefly across Spencer’s face, but when Spencer’s eyes find him again he nods and Spencer lays back against the bed. He hears Spencer’s sharp intake of breath from across the room as the nurse simultaneously lifts the hospital gown away and pulls the bed sheet up to Spencer’s waist.

Maeve reaches with her casted arm to brush her fingertips through Spencer’s hair. As the old bandages pull away from his skin Morgan hears him whisper something to her and he thinks that something is  _ don’t look _ . He drops his own gaze as well, though he assumes Spencer knows Morgan must have seen the wounds by now, if not during his rescue then from reviewing his case files. He listens to his friend’s haggard breathing, waiting until the nurse announces she’s finished to look up.

“Everything is looking good so far, Dr. Reid,” she informs him pleasantly. “In a day or two we can leave the dressings off altogether.” She turns around and double-checks the IV bag hanging behind her. Spencer sits up again, shaky and pale, but otherwise seeming relatively calm still. The nurse turns back to him, smiles. “Try to keep the needle in, okay? And then maybe we can take that out in a couple of days, too.”

Spencer flushes, but he nods, gaze dropping to his lap.

“Thank you,” Derek murmurs to her as she passes. She smiles at him, still looking a little nervous under his gaze, and pauses to reopen the privacy blinds before exiting the room.

“You alright?” Morgan asks, addressing Spencer this time.

Spencer bites his lower lip and nods. They all look up when the door opens again, and JJ pokes her head inside.

“Morgan.” She waits for him to step closer, until she’s able to lower her voice so only the two of them can hear. “Hotch wants to know if you’re going back to the motel or staying here.”

“Mhmm. Sure he doesn’t already know the answer?”

She rolls her eyes at him. “Okay, well, he says if you’re staying, you still have to sleep. And so do I. But don’t worry, because he is awake and watching over us with his eagle eyes.”

Morgan raises his eyebrows. “Hotch said that.”

“I may have added the last part.” She smirks, then peeks over his shoulder. “How’s he doing?”

“Better. I think.”

“He sure warmed up to you faster than you thought he would.”

“I’m not complaining.”

“Uh-huh. Well. Get some sleep. Or incur the wrath of eagle eyes.”

He feels himself smile -- smile! -- just a tiny one, at the familiarity of her banter. “Yes, ma’am.” She shuts the door. Morgan turns around, takes a few slow steps back toward the bed.

There’s a small couch, one of those hospital-grade types of furniture that looks to be made completely of plastic, tucked against the wall beneath the window to the hallway. It looks incredibly uncomfortable and Morgan would suddenly like nothing more than to flop down onto it and go back to sleep. JJ’s relay of Hotch’s order reminded him how tired he still is. He can feel the exhaustion seeping through him. Spencer is watching his movements while twisting his fingers through the bedsheets.

“JJ just called Hotch ‘eagle eyes’. I never noticed before but he does kind of look like an eagle when he’s staring someone down.”

He’s not sure, but he thinks he sees Reid’s mouth twitch. Like maybe some part of him wants to… smile?

“The two of you should get some rest. I’m sure they’ll be back with food or to take your blood pressure again in an hour or two.”

He means for his words to land on a light note, of course, but Spencer looks worried at the mention of the orderlies coming back. He hesitates, chewing at his lip again before his eyes flick up to meet Morgan’s.

“Can you, um. Will you… stay here?”

He tries not to look too sad at the timidness in Reid’s voice. “Yeah, of course. As long as you want me here.”

Spencer doesn’t look too convinced. Derek sighs.

“I’m not going anywhere. Promise. I will sleep upright against the closed door if it makes you feel safer, kid.”

He hears it as soon as the word leaves his lips, even before the color drains from Spencer’s face and tension coils through his body. He swallows past the fresh lump in his throat. Great. His big mouth is about to undo all of the progress he’s made in the last hour.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that, I--” He takes a deep breath. Maeve glances up at him. Her eyes are sad and she doesn’t seem surprised. He tries not to think about the implications of that. “I don’t mean to scare you. I keep forgetting. I’m sorry. I’m gonna try harder.”

Spencer nods, quickly, shakily, grants Morgan brief eye contact before looking down again. That’s something, at least. He sinks down onto the very plastic couch behind him and clasps his hands over his knees. He senses Spencer relaxing again, gradually. Maeve is combing her fingers through his hair.

“You should sleep,” she murmurs to him, her voice very low and very soft. “I’m not going anywhere.” She makes eye contact with Derek over the edge of the bed. “We’re both right here.”

Spencer doesn’t respond, just gives a short hum under his breath. A few moments later his breathing evens out. Maeve stays where she is for several more minutes and so does Morgan, though his mind and body are nagging at him to lie back and sleep. He hears a rustling of fabric and looks up to see Maeve sliding off the bed. She comes around to the other side, slowly, dragging the IV pole with her, and looks at him for a moment before lowering herself onto the couch beside him. He shuffles to the right to give her room and she takes a moment to rearrange herself, her movements ginger.

“It’s not his fault,” Maeve says, her voice just above a whisper. She glances up to make sure her words haven’t woken Spencer. Morgan frowns, wanting to give the first, most obvious reply that comes to his mind --  _ Of course it isn’t. I know that. _ But he senses there’s more.

She hesitates. “The way he reacts to you. Certain things you say, or do. He…”

She stops again. She looks like she’s trying to decide whether she should tell him whatever it is that’s on her mind. He waits.

“One of them acted like... you.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello my loves. how are we doing today? i've been pretty down lately but i got myself to finish editing through chapter 7 so i figured maybe sharing it with you all might cheer me up a little bit today. and hopefully if you guys are feeling icky as well this chapter will help because it's pretty much all emotions all the time, haha. hope you're all doing as wonderfully as you possibly can be and that you enjoy this chapter :) as always your comments and kudos are so appreciated so thanks again to everyone who's been leaving those. and thanks for reading. also not to spoil anything but if you're here for the angst and action that i've hinted at and sprinkled through the earlier chapters... best stay tuned for chapter 8 ;) love you xx

A cold, stiff dread seeps through Morgan’s insides. “Like me,” he repeats.

“I knew... I knew that he was using your nicknames, he called Spencer by them, but now after actually meeting you I…” She shakes her head and sucks her bottom lip up beneath her front teeth. “I think he was trying to act like you as much as he could.”

“Act like me...” he whispers again. He watches Spencer’s still form, his features deceptively calm as he sleeps. “Acted like me while he did… what?”

Maeve doesn’t say anything. He turns back to her, and she meets his gaze, her brow furrowed. She breaks eye contact, turning back toward Spencer.

“Maeve. What did this man do to Spencer?” Morgan asks again. His words are quiet still, but more strained than before.

“I can’t,” she whispers. There are tears in her eyes, which stay glued to Spencer. “It didn’t happen to me, it’s not fair for me to… I shouldn’t have even told you that much, I’m sorry…”

“That’s alright,” he says carefully, sensing her sudden, rising panic the same way he had sensed it earlier in Reid. “I understand.”

She nods. Her lower lip quivers and she takes a deep breath, blinking a few times until the tears disappear. It’s the least composed Morgan has seen her so far and he has a feeling she’s been working very hard to maintain that composure.

“He’s trying,” she murmurs.

“I know he is.”

“He loves you, you know. All of you. The way he would talk about you… He thinks of you as his family.”

“We all feel that way about each other.”

“Yes,” she agrees.

“Maeve. I know better than to take Spencer’s behavior personally. You don’t have to explain it to me.”

She nods again, slower, her expression pensive. “He knows you want to protect him. He trusts you. I think he forgets that it’s you sometimes, and not… him.”

“I  _ will _ protect him. Both of you.” She doesn’t reply but she looks at him, eyes wet again. He hesitates before reaching out and placing his fingers lightly over her casted hand. She doesn’t flinch away. Her exposed fingers curl halfway around his own. “Maeve, Spencer seems to think that this isn’t over yet. Even when he’s awake and knows where he is and who he’s talking to. He’s convinced the men who did this to you plan to come back and try to hurt you both again.” Her jaw clenches. He can’t tell if it’s because she shares this conviction or because he’s stirred up a new fear within her. “Do you… Do you have any idea why he thinks that? Anything they might have said to indicate they had a plan to…” She’s already shaking her head, biting down hard on her lower lip, and he trails off.

“You can’t let anything else happen to him,” she whispers, after a long pause.

“We won’t.  _ I _ won’t.” He leans in, just a bit. “We’re going to get these guys.”

“I know you are,” she says. He might be wrong, but she sounds like she believes it. He sits back and studies her for a moment.

“I don’t mean to pry, but can I ask you something?”

She nods, despite the uncertainty clear on her face.

“Spencer has told you, I’m sure, about what we do. The kind of things we see in our line of work.”

“We discussed it, a bit.”

“And you seem to believe me when I tell you we’re going to solve this case.”

She eyes him warily.

“Spencer said he offered more than once to track down your stalker. As far as I’m concerned, the only reason he never actually did was out of respect for you, because you asked him not to every time. I guess I’m just having trouble understanding why you wouldn’t let him bring it to us.”

She looks away again, back at Spencer. “I guess I…” She swallows, hard. “I was worried, that something…” She gestures ambiguously with her free hand. “...something like this, would happen. Ironic, I know. Though I… In my wildest dreams, I couldn’t have imagined…”

Derek sighs. “Maeve… what happened to you and Spencer… None of those men were your stalker. This didn’t happen because of her.”

A deep frown settles over her brow. “How do you know -- Did you just say ‘her’?”

He glances up again to make sure Maeve’s rise in pitch hasn’t woken Spencer. “When you first disappeared Spencer received a call on a payphone after dialing your number on it. That’s how he knew something was wrong. The caller identified themselves with a name from one of our old cases and said the word ‘zugzwang’ before hanging up.” He notes her change in expression. “Does that word mean something to you?”

“I… No, I just… I heard them say it once.” She’s staring at Spencer. Morgan remembers, with a nauseating jolt, the brand behind Spencer’s ear, realizes there’s a decent chance she saw them give it to him.

“We believe it’s become part of their signature, for whatever reason,” he says, speaking slowly and watching her for further reaction. “But that’s a longer story.” She doesn’t say anything else, and he can’t quite read her expression as she continues to watch Spencer with a distant look in her eyes.

“Anyway,” he says finally, deciding to continue despite her silence. “Spencer was convinced your stalker had abducted you. That was the most likely scenario as far as we could all tell. So the first lead we followed was a man named Bobby Putnam.”

She visibly pales. “You went to see Bobby?”

“We tried his apartment. There was no one there. We called his work and no one had heard from him in weeks.”

She releases a long, shuddering sigh and bites her lip, withdrawing her hand from beneath Derek’s and folding her other one over it. “I never told him I was engaged,” she whispers, staring sadly up at Spencer.

“I know.”

“We told each other so much. I think he… he thought we shared… everything. But I could never bring myself to…” She shakes her head, trailing off. Then she looks back up at Derek, frowning. “But Bobby wasn’t…”

“No,” Morgan agrees. “Do you ever remember meeting a woman named Diane Turner?”

She slowly shakes her head.

“She started dating Bobby shortly after you broke off your engagement, using the alias Diane Huntington. She was a research assistant at Mendel University during the time you were working there and applied for a Ph.D., but her thesis on suicide patients and spontaneous cell death was rejected.”

Maeve’s eyes have gone wide. “I… I read that paper, I rejected… oh my god.”

“We believe she blamed you for her failure to complete the program, and probably for a lot of other things, too. That would have then spiraled into an obsession with you and everything about your life.”

“You… know all this because you… found her?”

Morgan hesitates. “We found Bobby and Diane a few hours after Spencer disappeared. They had both been murdered. We now believe they were killed by the same people who abducted you.”

She stares at him for a moment, then sits back against the couch, her gaze wandering away. Morgan gives her a few minutes to process. A single tear rolls halfway down her cheek before her hand comes up to wipe it away.

“You’re telling me,” she says suddenly, her eyes still far away, “that the… the people who, who did that to us… they were able to just figure out who she was and track her down and… Just like that? Who… who are these people?”

Morgan sighs. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Whoever they are, they probably followed the exact steps we would have taken to figure it out. We would have looked into Bobby, run background on Diane, and found the paper trail connecting her to you.”

“If… If I had just let Spencer… Maybe things would have been different…”

“Nuh-uh, don’t do that to yourself. You have no way of knowing how anything would have played out.”

“But maybe the first time we laid eyes on one another wouldn’t have been…” She takes a deep breath, looks up at Morgan. “You know we never saw each other, not once?” A hint of bitterness has crept into her tone. “Not even a photograph. But as soon as they pushed him into that room, before he made a single sound, as… as soon as I laid eyes on him, I just… I just knew.”

A few more tears spill down her cheeks. Morgan sighs. “When was the last time you got any sleep?”

“It feels like it’s been years,” she admits. She plays with a strand of her hair. “It’s… it’s kind of funny, really. I had completely isolated myself, I had nothing but time on my hands, but I felt so anxious, so alert, all the time. I could hardly sleep even though I had plenty of time for it. Even if I laid in bed all day and night trying. But once Spencer and I started talking… Every night we spoke on the phone, I slept after. Like I used to. Sometimes I would even forget, for just a minute, when I first woke up.” A small smile has spread across her face, but it fades away again. She wraps the strand of hair tightly around her index finger. “Now every time I close my eyes, I just… I just see them… hurting him. All over again.”

She squeezes her eyes shut, causing several more tears to fall. Morgan sighs and rubs his hand across his face.

“I couldn’t…  _ stand _ it,” she whispers, through gritted teeth. “Being there.  _ Watching. _ Hearing… I begged them to stop. I begged them to hurt me, instead. But they never did. They just made me sit there and…” She exhales. Her hands have started to shake. “But then they took me away and they said… he would think I was dead, and that would hurt more than anything else they could do to him. And then... they did start hurting me. But it was like I didn’t even care, I couldn’t even focus on it, not knowing…” She swallows, hard. “At least when they made me… w-watch… I could see him, I knew, I knew what was happening, but after… I couldn’t see him anymore, I didn’t know, and… I would beg them, just to tell me something, anything, even just whether he was alive or dead, and they would just… laugh. Every time I was asleep, or… or sedated, I would… I would just wake up panicking, knowing he wasn’t there. Knowing that I had no idea where he was or what was happening to him.”

She uncoils her fingers from her hair and drops her still-trembling hand to her lap. Morgan reaches for it, once more taking her fingers in his. “Listen. I cannot even begin to imagine what you two have been through. But the feeling you just described? That panic, that weight in your chest, the way you wake up gasping for air before you even know why you can’t breathe? That’s a feeling I  _ am _ familiar with.” He feels her fingers squeeze tight around his. “It will take awhile. But that feeling’s gonna go away. And in the meantime, waking up with him right there next to you is definitely going to help.”

She doesn’t reply, but she manages a soft smile, a nod. Morgan stands, circles back around Spencer’s bed to the other side of the room. He feels her eyes on him as he kicks up the wheel brakes on the second hospital bed. He grips the frame on both sides and pushes it across the room, carefully lining it up to Reid’s bed and moving it as close as he can, until there’s as little space as possible left between the beds.

He latches the wheels again and turns back to Maeve. She’s watching him with warmth in her exhausted gaze. She pushes herself up, hanging onto the IV pole as she drags herself to where he stands.

“You’re pretty good at this.”

He puts a hand on her elbow as she climbs up onto the mattress, making sure she doesn’t fall. “Good at what?”

“Protecting.” She settles back, pushes her feet up under the pile of covers at the foot of the bed. “Comforting.”

“Yeah, well.” He takes the edges of the sheet and blanket and pulls them up over her. “Get some rest. I’ll be right here.” He nods toward the other bed. “And so will he.”

Maeve turns her head so she can see Spencer, still lost in sleep. “Thank you,” she murmurs, before her heavy eyelids droop shut.

Morgan steps quietly back to the couch and lies down on it, draping himself across the plastic. He closes his own eyes, trying not to think any more about what Maeve said as sleep washes over him.

_ One of them acted like you. _

-

He’s trying to focus on something, anything, other than the way his brain is shuffling through his thoughts like his mother used to flip through channels on the television. His mind shouldn’t still be like this. The drugs should have long since worn off, so, why does he still feel fractured, fragmented? It’s been days, hasn’t it, since --

_...the needle slides into his veins and he doesn’t even flinch anymore, he can’t even cry, the face above him blurs and he feels himself drifting again and a small part of him hopes maybe it’ll be the last time -- _

No. No, no. Hospital room. Stratocumulous cloud outside of the window. Stratocumulous clouds are low-based clouds often formed by a layer of stratus cloud breaking up. Stratocumulous clouds generally produce no precipitation but are often seen either just before or just after severe weather and may serve as an indicator of storms to come. Stratocumulous clouds indicate a change in weather and present near an occluded, warm, or cold front.

_ Cold. It is so cold. The wind from outside gusts in through broken panels of glass above him and breeze across his naked body and he’s so cold he can feel himself crying, he’s shaking, he’s so cold… _

It’s not cold in here. Is it? His fingers curl around the hospital blanket and he pulls it further up around his body. The fabric catches briefly on the tape of his IV, rubbing against the thin tubing as he tries to drag it up to his shoulders. His eyes inadvertently travel up, to the bag, the drip --

_ Drip. Drip. Drip. It’s there. It’s always there. Drip. He can hear it. Drip. He just wants it to stop. He would reach out and stop it but he can’t move. Drip. He’s so heavy. Drip. So tired. Drip. Where is he? Drip. That goddamned sound. Drip. He turns his head, slowly, drip, so slowly, drip, painfully slow, drip. Everything is so blurry. Drip. Is there something in his arm? Drip. Needle. Drip. Tube. Drip. Fluids. Drip. He looks. Drip. Up. Drip. He sees the bag, still half full. He watches it. Drip. Still half full. Drip -- _

No.  _ No _ . No. Hospital. Blankets. Clothing. The sky. Fluorescent lights. He thinks he remembers that he hates those. Plastic couch. Derek Morgan sleeping on a plastic couch. Derek Morgan. Safe. He let Derek Morgan touch his hand. Derek Morgan held his hand.

_ Hands on his body. Hands traveling down. Hands squeezing his skin hands pulling his hair hands leaving bruises hands -- _

Hand. Hand on his wrist. Maeve’s hand on his wrist.

He turns his head. She’s looking at him. Brown doe eyes. Concerned. Soft.

“Are you okay?”

She’s whispering. Probably because of Derek Morgan sleeping on a plastic couch.

_ Derek Morgan. Hand. Hands on his -- _

He takes a deep, shuddering breath and lets it back out. “I just... keep… thinking,” he whispers back, matching her volume. Derek Morgan stays asleep.

She nods, wrapping her fingers fully around his. He tries to focus on that. The way her hand feels, touching his. Warm. Soft. Safe. “Me too.”

His fingers squeeze hers. He knows what her words mean. He’s thinking about what he’s felt; she’s thinking about what she’s seen. Or at least, he  _ thinks _ that’s what she means.

“I need to ask you… I have to know…”

“Spencer…”

“I do,” he insists. Her eyes are sad.

“I don’t want that image in your head--”

“Tell me how many images you have in yours.”

She’s quiet. There are tiny tears pooling in her eyelids. He can see her thinking. Recaling, unwillingly. He’s sorry he caused her to do that. He swallows, licks his dry lips, asks: “Did they--”

“Yes,” she murmurs. The word slides through his body like a cold, sharp blade. He squeezes his eyes shut.

“I never heard any sounds like -- you s-screaming, I… I hoped that maybe…”

“It was after they moved me.”

Somehow that’s worse. He lifts their intertwined hands and presses them to his chest. “I’m sorry, this is all my fault, I’m so sorry--”

“No, Spencer--” He feels her hand tug away from his and the mattress shifts beneath him. He looks up, alarmed to see her attempting to cross the miniscule divide between their hospital beds and climb up beside him. His hands go up to help her, one to her waist and the other gripping the elbow of her casted arm. He scoots toward the left side of the bed as quickly as he can manage to make room for her, wincing at the way his bandages pull with the movements.

She takes a few seconds to catch her breath, breathing heavily after the effort of maneuvering between beds. Seeing her so winded reminds Spencer again just how weak and frail they both are and he feels another pang of guilt. Maeve rearranges herself, tucking her legs beneath her and sitting so that she faces him and can look him dead in the eye.

“None of this is your fault,” she says.

He shakes his head, feeling his cheeks flush. “You wouldn’t have even been involved… I made you a target…”

“Mmm.” she places her hand flat to his chest. “You had no way of knowing they were coming after you in the first place.” He doesn’t reply, avoiding her gaze. “By that logic, it’s also my fault for not letting you track down my stalker.” He looks at her then, frowning, the silent question written across his face.

“Derek told me while you were sleeping,” she says softly. He follows her gaze when she glances down at Morgan.. “He said when I first went missing you went looking for Bobby but you couldn’t find him.” He gives a few slow nods. “Once we were both gone they found… they, um, they found him dead. Along with a woman named Diane. And they think that she was dating Bobby, and that she was the stalker all along, and that the people who took us knew that and used her and Bobby to get to us.”

“And then killed them,” Spencer murmurs.

“If I had listened to you and let you find her, maybe…”

“That wouldn’t have stopped them.” He lifts his hand and smooths it through her hair. She catches it in hers and wraps her fingers around his.

“No. But maybe things could have been different for us. Before everything…”

“Maybe.”

“I should have told you about Bobby.” Her gaze drops to her lap. “I know how blindsided you must have felt.”

“I wasn’t expecting it,” he admits. He remembers the shock washing over him, how he repeated the word ‘fiance?’ out loud, staring through the two-way mirror at Maeve’s parents. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you to feel like you were… I don’t know, a ‘rebound’, or second choice, somehow.” A flush of pink spreads over her cheeks. “I think I always knew deep down it wasn’t going to last, even before we were engaged. And it always felt right with you. In a way I never felt with him. But I still should have told you.”

“It’s okay.” He caresses his fingers lightly along her shoulder.

She looks at him. “If I had let you find her…”

“That wouldn’t have stopped them from taking us,” he says again, a somber tone creeping into his voice. “They still would have. Might have even made it easier for them.”

She winces. “I know, I just… I wish we could have had that time together. Before. If you hadn’t called me before I walked into the restaurant that night -- Spencer?”

She’s noticed the tears pooling in his eyes. He takes a shaky breath.

“I wanted to tell you… I never got the chance and then… I didn’t want to say it in that…  _ place _ and then I thought you had… I thought they… I thought you were gone and that I would never…”

“Spencer, what are you saying?” She shifts weight so that she can lie down next to him. She presses up against his side and he turns his head to look at her.

“Do you remember the time we were on the phone and you said… right before hanging up, you just… you said ‘bye, love you’, and…”

“Oh.  _ Oh. _ Oh, Spencer. It’s okay--”

“It’s not okay, it’s not…” She brushes a tear from his cheek. “I thought you had -- had  _ died,  _ without me ever telling you that I love you and I -- I love you.”

“I love you too. It’s okay. It’s alright. I’m right here.” He nestles his face against her shoulder and she cups her hand around the back of his head. “I’m right here.”

“I love you,” he whispers again. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry they hurt you, I’m so sorry…”

“Shh.” She strokes his hair with her fingers. “We’re okay now. It’s okay. No one can hurt us anymore.”

He exhales slowly against her, hesitating before he pulls back far enough to look her in the eye. “Do you… believe that?”

“What?”

“You… you don’t really think it’s… over…”

He watches the color drain from her face. “What do you mean?”

He feels sick saying it out loud but he does it anyway. “The only way we would have been rescued alive is if they let it happen. On purpose.”

He can see her processing and he waits. “So… you really think they’re… what? Coming back for us?”

“I don’t know,” he says quickly, hearing the way her voice shakes. “I… Maybe. Yes.”

She stares back at him. Her lower lip is trembling just a little and he can’t tell if she’s more frightened for herself or for him. He grips her hand and holds it against his chest.

“Whatever happens,” he whispers, “I’m the target. Not you. And I’m not going to let them hurt you again.”

“Spencer--”

“If anyone else is going to get hurt--”

“Stop. No one else is going to get hurt.” She lays back against him, wraps one arm around his torso and hugs him closer. “Your team is here now. Right? Maybe they --  _ we _ \-- didn’t know what to expect before, but… we do, now.”

“Do we?”

She sighs. “Okay, then… we’ll figure it out. They’ll figure it out. That’s… I mean that’s, that’s what you do, right? That’s your -- their -- job?”

He doesn’t say anything. He knows she’s right. At least he thinks he does. His brain flips through another handful of fragmented memories. Round table. Case files. Jet. Profile. Case board. Photos. Bodies.

He just doesn’t know anymore. He does, but he doesn’t. It’s like someone has reached inside of him and taken hold of every memory, every conviction, every fact he once knew to be true, and scrambled them, took the threads and pulled them loose, maybe even all the way out. This isn’t him. But it is. But it isn’t.

“Spencer.” He looks back at her. Her lips go up, just a little, in a tiny soft sad smile. Her finger traces very small circles underneath his hand. “Where did you go, just now?”

“I don’t know,” he murmurs. “I don’t… feel like… myself.”

“I know.” She shifts weight again and rests her head on his shoulder. They stay like that for several long minutes, both of them just listening to the sound of one another breathing. Then she sits up, facing him.

“This morning was the first time we ever touched.”

He blinks back at her. “I… yes?”

She sits all the way up, looking down at him. “Would it be alright if… I know it’s not the most... romantic place, or circumstances, but… I would really like to kiss you for the first time now.”

His eyebrows go up, warmth flushing through his cheeks. “Well, I… I actually think that’s very romantic.” He gestures toward the window. “The sun is setting and everything.”

She smiles. She looks at him for a moment, uncasted hand lifting from his chest and moving to gently caress his cheek. Then she leans in, slowly, until he can feel her breath, whispering across his face. Her forehead taps against his, her eyelashes tickling his skin, the tip of her nose brushing against the side of his own.

Her lips close around his and she’s warm. Soft. She kisses him gently, with a tentative fervor. He leans into her, just a bit, afraid to move too much for fear he might shatter this perfect moment she’s created for them. She breaks the kiss and rests her forehead against his with a delicate sigh. He opens his eyes to find her looking at him already, so close their lashes brush together when she blinks.

After a few more seconds her uncasted arm starts to tremble from the exertion of holding her body up and she sinks into the mattress next to him again, snuggling up to his side. Spencer slides one arm around her, using the other to pull the blankets over both of them before wrapping it around her as well and hugging her close.

“I love you,” he whispers again, into the curls of her hair.

He feels her smile against him. She rests her hand on his chest, her fingers spreading above his heartbeat. “I love you,” she repeats back to him, her voice a low hum.

He’s quiet for a moment, then murmurs, “It’s kind of… funny, right? How we’ve almost done everything in... backwards order.”

He’s not sure it’s clear what he means -- that he’s talking about their relationship, how they came to know each other so well, so intimately, before even laying eyes on one another; how they said ‘I love you’ before even sharing a first kiss -- but she seems to understand, because she moves so that she can look up at him for a moment, lips curved into a small, warm smile.

“It’s romantic though, isn’t it? Poetic, almost. Like a cheesy romance novel. Or a nineties rom-com.”

Except, he thinks, for the part where they were both kidnapped and Maeve was forced to watch as he was tortured daily before being made to believe she was dead. Because although he’s generally unfamiliar with romance novels and nineties rom-coms, he’s pretty sure none of what they’ve been through over the past six months are normal pop culture plot tropes.

She seems to be thinking the same thing, because her smile fades, her expression sobering. “It’s what happened,” she murmurs. “And we’re both here now. Together. That’s what matters.”

He still can’t help but feel, at his very core, that everything she’s had to go through because of him is all very much his fault. But she’s just finished trying to convince him that it isn’t so he’s not about to tell her that.

“I just so glad you’re alive,” he whispers.

He feels her release a long breath. She moves so that her ear rests against his ribcage, where she can hear his heart as it beats. He feels a tear slide down his face and he takes her hand when she reaches for his. She doesn’t have to say it back. She doesn’t have to say anything at all.

The way she lays against him, the way he can feel his rib bones jutting sharply against her body, with little else left there to cushion her, makes him feel even worse, reminding him again how withered and fragile their bodies have become, how much they’ve been whittled down. They’ve had a meal brought in, about an hour ago, during which Morgan woke up long enough to assess the situation and ensure Spencer and Maeve were comfortable before nodding off again. They’re only allowed foods on the bland side right now, things that won’t upset their stomachs, overwhelm their starved bodies. He was only barely able to consume the small amounts of rice, steamed broccoli, and unseasoned chicken on his tray before his shrunken stomach began to protest. He’s not even sure he’s hungry again now, but he wants to be. He’s painfully aware of how weak they both are and he’d like for them not to be much longer.

“Do you think,” he says, after a few long minutes, “they’ll come back with more food soon?”

He feels her smile come back. “I think,” she replies, “that one of us could press a button to call a nurse in and ask for more.”

He nods, but otherwise doesn’t move, and she looks up at him expectantly.

She’s so beautiful. So warm. So… alive.

“In a minute,” he murmurs. “I just want to stay like this a little longer.”

She settles back against him. “We can stay like this for as long as you like.”

He wants to believe her. But somehow he just doesn’t think that’s true.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat's up my lovelies!! I wanted to post this sooner but I got a migraine this week so I wasn't done editing until just now :( I get them for 48 hours and then usually have another day after where my brain is fuzzy so. maybe that's another reason why I love Spencer Reid so much ahaaaa... but I'm gonna go to a neurologist soon about it so like. it's prolly chill?
> 
> anyways now that I've told all of my stranger-friends on the internet about my problems... here's another chapter ta-daaa... this one is actually really long and has some ACTION!! and EMOTIONS!! personally this chapter, I think, has everything. so I hope it fulfills you all emotionally for a hot second while I try to get my shit together and not have another 3-day migraine before I can get the next chapter written. :) but yeah I hope you have a great time reading and also as usual I want to apologize if anyone seems stiff or if anything reads a little weird, if I'm trying to edit through a mental fog sometimes I miss things :(
> 
> and also, of COURSE, as usual, thank you for reading and a big thank youuuuuuu to everyone who has left kudos & comments, which as we all know by now make me full of rainbows and butterflies and sunshine. love you xx

“I don’t want to.”

Both Maeve and Emily turn to look at him and he shrinks a little. Morgan clears his throat.

“Reid, why don’t you and I just take a little walk up and down the hall? Just until they’re done.”

Spencer exhales, looking nervously between Emily and Morgan before his gaze settles on Maeve’s face. “I-I don’t want to leave you alone…”

“It’ll be alright,” Maeve soothes. She reaches from her perch at the foot of the bed, puts her hand over his knee. “It won’t be for very long. Emily will be here the whole time. We won’t leave this room.” The anxiety doesn’t fade from his face. She scoots closer and leans in, adding, in a low whisper, “I’m not going to tell her anything that isn’t for me to tell. Only things that could help… help find them. Okay?”

He knows it needs to be done. Or at least, some part of him does, deep down, some tiny part that still remembers what it’s like to be human and lead a rational life and think about what he would have done six months ago at a time like this. And that part also knows that it’s astounding and probably not good that his team has already waited two days to push them to talk. But something still feels very wrong and every bit of him other than that one little part is terrified by the thought of either of them talking about it.

“Okay,” he says finally, because that tiny little part of him knows that he has to.

She holds his hand while he slides off the bed, waiting until his feet are firmly planted on the cool floor before standing with his full body weight. He gives her one more long look before his fingers slip out of hers. He grips his IV pole instead and reluctantly starts to follow Morgan out of the room. It’s odd, the sensation of linoleum through the rubber-soled hospital socks on his feet, when he’s only felt dirt and concrete beneath them for the past one hundred and eighty-one days.

One hundred and eighty-one days. He doesn’t feel better knowing the exact amount of time he was gone. For some reason he’d thought that he might, after the drugs and the torture and the metal slab beneath him and the endlessness of not knowing made everything blur together and he couldn’t keep track for himself anymore. But knowing, restoring that small bit of order to his mind, doesn’t make him feel any less fractured or falling-apart.

One hundred and eighty-one days, six months, what’s the difference, really? It was a long time. He was gone for a long time. It may as well have been a year, as far as he’s concerned. It certainly felt long enough. Actually, it feels like it’s been many years, decades, centuries, an eternity. He’s been so far removed from his life that it’s difficult to wrap his head around being dropped right back into it, just shy of six months later, a tangled, useless mess of the bits and pieces that used to be him.

He sees Penelope seated across the small foyer, hunched over and concentrating intently upon her laptop. Hotch sits in the chair next to her, peering sideways at the screen over her shoulder. As if he can feel Spencer’s eyes on him, he looks up, meeting his gaze with the same serious, piercing stare that Spencer remembers, somewhere deep, deep within the recesses of his mind. He’s seen it a thousand times and then remembered it a thousand more, but it still sends a shiver crawling up his spine.

Morgan notices him staring at about the moment that Hotch looks away. “JJ and Rossi went to the motel to get some sleep once Emily and Penelope got back,” he murmurs. “I don’t think Hotch has left since he and Rossi brought Maeve back yesterday morning.”

Spencer doesn’t say anything, but he looks down at the floor for a second and then glances back up. A pinched look has settled over Morgan’s face, the kind of look someone gets when they think they’ve misspoken. His features smooth out again when he sees Spencer looking.

The door clicks shut behind them and Spencer tenses at the sound. He sees Emily briefly through the privacy blinds before she pulls them shut.

“Come on,” Morgan says. “Let’s just take a little walk down the hall.”

Spencer wavers, hesitant to put any more distance between himself and Maeve than he already has.

“We won’t go far. And Emily’s gonna be in there the whole time. Alright?”

The tension doesn’t leave his body but after another several seconds he gives a short, jerky nod. His free hand, the one that isn’t clutched tightly to his IV pole, smooths down the front of his hospital gown, then does it again, and a third time, shaking with each nervous movement. He still feels vulnerable, exposed, naked even now that he’s clothed. There aren’t that many people around, aside from his friends and the staff members he’s seen already before now, but he still feels uneasy, like everyone in the building is watching him.

Morgan has taken a couple of precursory steps and he’s looking back at Spencer, waiting. Spencer exhales and pushes himself forward in the same direction. One of the wheels on his pole squeaks in protest to how hard he’s pushing down on it, and he tries to stand up a little straighter, support more of his own weight.

They’ve only made it a few yards when there’s a loud clatter of metal hitting metal hitting linoleum behind them. Spencer immediately grabs hold of Morgan’s forearm and shrinks against him, all of the air leaving his lungs in one frantic breath.

Morgan seems startled, too, more so by Spencer’s sudden vice grip on his wrist than by the loud noise. Breathing fast, Spencer slowly turns just enough to look over his shoulder for the source of the sound. One of the orderlies is bent over near the nurse’s desk behind them, picking up two metal trays and saying something sheepish to the nurse beside him that Spencer can’t hear.

Some of the tension drains from Spencer’s body. He pulls his arm off of Morgan’s and hugs it against him, shuffling back a few paces.

“You alright?”

They both know it’s a silly question and they both know the answer is ‘no’, but Morgan asks anyway, and Spencer gives a chagrined nod, staring down at the top of his socks. He feels his face flush with warmth.

“Okay. That’s okay.” Morgan hesitates, then reaches out and touches his hand lightly to Spencer’s elbow. Spencer flinches, but doesn’t pull away. “I’m right here.”

_ Spencer, I’m here. I’m right here. _

What?

He sucks at his lower lip and then turns away, taking a couple of slow paces in the direction they’d been walking before. Morgan quickly falls into step again beside him, but he doesn’t say anything else, which is good because Spencer’s really not sure what he would say back. Instead he focuses hard on each footstep, the feeling of sock against his soles, the chill of the linoleum that still reaches up through the material and seeps into his skin. He shivers in between steps, and he feels Morgan’s eyes on him, though he remains silent.

_ I’m right here. _

The IV pole squeaks again and suddenly he can hear a different pitch of squeaking in his head, a sound that comes from beneath instead of beside him and is accompanied by painful bumps and jolts, and warmth, and something thin spread over his body, and… voices.

_ I’m right here _ .

And the mechanical hum of an engine, and rolling movement, and… a siren? And…

_ I’m right here. _

And unexpectedly, all of it falling away at once, into nothingness, blackness, darkness, and a high-pitched, uninterrupted frequency drowning his ears, and a tiny glimmer of bright light bursting outward, growing larger, spreading toward him, and he shrinks away…

_ Spencer, please-- _

_ Stay with me now-- _

_ I’m here-- _

And then it all comes back and it hurts again, it hurts all over, and he’s frightened again, and he doesn’t understand, and he thinks he’s crying, begging. And then he doesn’t remember.

_ I’m right here _ .

He’s stopped walking. Morgan notices and turns, instantly noting how all of the color has drained from his friend’s face. “Spencer?”

He feels a surge of weakness pass through him and he grips the pole with both hands to keep them from shaking. Morgan doesn’t have to ask a second time. He places his hands on Spencer’s elbows and guides him gently toward the nearest bench. Spencer registers the touch, somewhere behind the haze of remembering, and thinks it odd. Then he realizes his elbows are some of the only places on his body where he isn’t bruised or bandaged, some of the only places where he won’t be in pain when touched.

He feels the edge of the bench against the back of his knees and he lowers himself onto it, releasing a long breath as he does so. Morgan sits beside him and Spencer can feel his eyes, worried, watching his face.

“Did I die?”

Morgan blinks. The weight of Spencer’s words settles, heavy, over both of them. “What?”

Spencer turns to meet his gaze, but doesn’t repeat the question. He doesn’t have to. A second or two goes by and the shock passes and Morgan sighs. He folds his hands together in his lap, looking down at them for a moment.

“We lost you in the ambulance on the way here. For about a minute. Then the paramedics brought you back.”

Spencer nods. He isn’t surprised, not after the memory that flashed through his mind, or the initial reaction to his question. He turns Derek’s response over in his head, pondering the word choice.  _ We lost you. _ Not  _ you died. _

We lost you.

How that must have felt. After already having lost him, having to spend six months coming to terms with that. Then un-losing him. Then losing him all over again right away. How long, how hideous, just that one minute must have felt.

“Do you remember?”

Morgan’s words bring him back. He blinks, eyes narrowing in a silent question.

“Us finding you. Since you asked about… I just wondered if you remember.”

_ I’m right here. Stay with me. I’m right here. _

“I remember… your voice,” he murmurs finally. “And… moving. It’s… it’s blurry. I don’t…” He shakes his head, looking down at the floor. “The drugs…”

“I know.”

Spencer chews his lip again, avoiding eye contact. “What caused me to…” He doesn’t know how to finish the question. He doesn’t really want to say the word ‘die’ again. It came out harsher than he expected the first time he said it. But he can see Morgan in his peripheral vision, looking at him with a furrowed brow. He clearly isn’t sure what Spencer means. “In the ambulance,” Spencer supplies.

“Right.” Morgan shifts weight. Spencer can’t tell whether he’s uncomfortable or distressed. “Well. You were dehydrated. Malnourished. And just the stress of… of what was happening. That’s what the paramedics said, anyway.”

Spencer wonders briefly if that was actually the case; whether the stress of being moved, disturbed and confused and frightened by the unfamiliarity, had been the trigger, or whether his body would have always just given out at exactly that moment, regardless of external stimuli.

“Do you think if you hadn’t come I would have died for real?”

He sees the horror that flashes across Derek’s face, before he’s able to hide it. He winces, wraps both of his arms tightly around his stomach.

“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry, I… That wasn’t…”

“No, it’s--” Morgan clears his throat. “It’s alright.” He pauses, for several long seconds. “I… I don’t know.”

Spencer glances up at him. “Didn’t you think I might already be…” He doesn’t want to say it again. He can’t. But it floats silently in the air between them anyway.  _ Dead. _

“No,” Morgan says. It’s automatic, firm. Forceful, even. “I…” He sighs. “Maybe,” he admits.

“It was a long time,” Spencer says. His voice is hollow, eerie almost.

“Yes,” Morgan agrees. He meets Spencer’s gaze. “I just… had a feeling.”

It isn’t logical. A ‘feeling’. He doesn’t have to tell Morgan that. They’ve seen enough abductions, enough bodies dumped unceremoniously on the side of the road or buried in shallow graves, to know that a live recovery after one hundred and eighty-one days almost never happens.

_ Ninety percent of all abduction victims are killed within the first thirty-six hours.  _ The statistics scroll briefly through his mind before he pushes them back out, a shiver crawling up his spine.

“Spencer, if I could have… if I could have done anything to bring you back faster, I…” Morgan’s voice cracks. “We looked for you every day. Even when we had to start taking new cases again. We never stopped searching.”

“I know.” One hundred and eighty-one days of not knowing. One hundred and eighty-one days of wondering if the next body that turned up would be his.

“Can I ask you something?”

Spencer looks up, wary at the hesitation he hears in Morgan’s voice.

“Does the number 35 mean anything to you? Or 5, or 175?”

Spencer frowns. His eyes wander as he thinks. Eventually he shakes his head. When Morgan doesn’t say anything else he looks up again. “Why?”

He sees Morgan’s jaw clench, just a little. He doesn’t want to tell him.

“It’s… come up,” he says finally. “Multiple times.” Spencer waits for more. Morgan sighs, intertwining his fingers. “You sure you wanna know?”

He’s not, especially not now that Morgan’s asked, but he nods anyway.

“Alright.” He’s quiet for a moment. “About a day and a half -- which I’m now realizing was more like thirty-five hours -- after you disappeared, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to JJ’s desk with a condolence card attached. No name. Only the word ‘zugzwang’.” He hears Spencer’s sharp intake of breath and pauses again, watching his friend closely. “Exactly thirty-five  _ days _ after you were gone, the Replicator showed up again. This time he copied the Turner and Whitewood case. With the… hammer.”

He waits, and Spencer nods, to indicate that he remembers.

“There were surveillance photos of everyone on the team plastered all over the walls, along with the word ‘zugzwang’, written in the victim’s blood.”

Spencer bites his lip. Morgan debates whether or not he should keep going.

“Exactly one hundred and seventy-five days -- which Emily pointed out is a multiple of both five and thirty-five -- after you were gone… Blake was…”

“Shot,” Spencer whispers.

Morgan blinks, momentarily taken aback before remembering, much to his chagrin, that Emily already told Spencer about Alex. “Right. And she was…”

Spencer looks at him sharply, alarmed when he doesn’t finish the statement. “She was what?”

“When we got to the hospital she was holding… a scrap of paper that just said ‘zugzwang’ on it… and…” He hesitates again. Spencer holds his breath. “And a picture of… you.”

He sees the flash in his mind, hears the mechanical click, the grinding sound of a polaroid printing out. “A picture of me… from when?” His voice quivers.

“From… in there.” Morgan swallows, hard. “On the back someone had written ‘7 miles’. Of course we had no idea what that meant. Then two days ago there was a shooting at a gas station seven miles from where we found you. The bullet was a match to the one that shot Blake. Which of course means they  _ wanted _ us to--” He looks up and sees the look on Spencer’s face, the way his hands are shaking. “Hey--”

“I-I don’t know what it means,” Spencer mumbles. “I’m sorry, I’ll… I’ll think about it, I’ll try to… to, um…”

“Hey. Hey, it’s alright. Don’t worry about it. We’ll figure it out.”

Spencer gives a short, jerky, very unconvincing nod, fingers still trembling violently.

“We’re gonna get these guys. I will not let anything else happen to you.” He feels like all he’s doing is repeating himself at this point, but he doesn’t know what else to say. He’s not sure Spencer even registers the words. He’s still just staring straight ahead, though thankfully his shaking has grown less violent.

“She’s okay, right?” Spencer asks suddenly.

“Who?” Morgan frowns. “Blake?” Spencer doesn’t look up, but he bites down on his lower lip. “Yeah. She’s gonna be fine.”

“But… you would tell me if… if she wasn’t?”

Morgan’s gut clenches. He hears the unspoken half of the question, loud and clear. He remembers his slip-up earlier, when he mentioned Hotch and Rossi bringing Maeve to the hospital. Morgan had practically heard the wheels turning in Reid’s head when he said it, but even at that point he had to have known there was a window of time in which they knew Maeve was alive and hadn’t told him. So of course. Why should he believe Morgan and Emily when they tell him that Alex Blake is alive and well?

“The bullet didn’t hit any organs or major arteries. The surgery only took a few hours. The doctor said she would make a full recovery. I was there when she woke up and JJ called her right after we brought you here to let her know you were safe. I  _ promise _ you. She’s alright.”

Spencer releases a shaky breath. “Okay,” he whispers.

“I’m sorry for pushing you,” Morgan says quietly.

Spencer shakes his head. “No, you… you didn’t. It’s just…”

“I know.”

They sit for a few minutes in silence, until some of the color has returned to Spencer’s cheeks and his body no longer shakes.

“How much longer do you think they’re going to be?”

Morgan glances back up the hall. “I don’t know. Do you want to walk back that way?” He stands when he sees Spencer nod.

Spencer pushes off the bench with one hand, struggling a little to get to his feet. He leans dangerously to one side and Morgan reaches out and grips him again by the elbow, letting go once he’s regained his balance. Neither of them say anything else as they slowly make their way back up the hallway.

They reach the nurse’s desk. Hotch has his head leaned back against the wall behind his chair, his eyes closed and face slack. Morgan hopes he’s gone to sleep, because he’s pretty sure Hotch has been awake for at least forty-eight hours at this point. Garcia is still planted next to him behind her laptop, but she looks up as they near, making brief eye contact with Morgan over the screen.

The door to their hospital room opens and Spencer jumps a little at the sound. Emily offers them a somber smile before she pushes the door open wider and steps out of the way. Spencer rushes in past her.

“Anything useful?” Morgan asks quietly, he and Emily watching as Spencer puts his arms around Maeve and she hides her face in the crook of his shoulder.

“Maybe. I’m not sure,” she murmurs back. She turns away with a deep sigh. “She wanted to keep going but she kept breaking down. I didn’t want to push her any harder.”

“Yeah.” Morgan grabs the doorknob and pulls it back towards them, leaving the door just slightly ajar to give Maeve and Spencer some privacy. “She’s tough. Seems like she really wants to help.”

“She knows Spence can barely talk about it,” Emily says softly. “She said she wants to tell us everything she can that could help us, since he can’t.”

“Jeez.” Morgan rubs a hand over his face.

“She won’t talk about what they did to Spencer, though.” She chews on her middle fingernail.

“I know.” He thinks back to the day before.  _ It didn’t happen to me, it’s not fair for me to… _

Emily glances at him, eyes questioning. He shakes his head.

“I’ll tell you later. When did Hotch tell Rossi and JJ to be back?”

“Noon, I think.”

“We can all debrief each other then.”

“Sure.”

He looks over his shoulder again, into the room. He can hear Spencer and Maeve murmuring to each other in low tones. “He doesn’t know what any of the numbers mean. If they mean anything.”

She looks at him again, surprised. “You asked him about the numbers?”

“He was already asking questions.”

“What kind of questions?”

Morgan’s jaw clenches. “He asked if he died in the ambulance.”

Some of the color drains from Emily’s face. “He remembers…”

“Apparently.”

“Oof.” She releases a long breath.

“Yeah.”

She glances behind them again. “Think he’s getting closer to being able to talk about it?”

He remembers the way Spencer jumped when the tray fell, the panic in his eyes. The complete lack of emotion when talking about himself dying, the emptiness in his voice. The sudden terror every time Morgan said the word “zugzwang”. He follows Emily’s gaze. Maeve and Spencer have laid down in the bed furthest from the door, arms curled defensively around one another. There’s a look on Spencer’s face that Morgan can’t fully place, some mixture of sadness and fear and protectiveness and… guilt, maybe.

“No,” Morgan says softly. “No, I don’t think he is.”

-

It’s dark. It’s so dark. He can’t move, not at all, he can barely even breathe. It’s cold. It’s cold and dark and it feels like metal. Cold, dark metal, surrounding him on all six sides, a long, perfect rectangle, sealed tightly around him. And he can’t breathe. And he’s cold. And he doesn’t understand.

And he can’t breathe.

There’s a heavy creaking of metal and hinges and the sudden light blinds him. He gasps, desperate for the fresh air that rushes in, but he still can’t breathe and he’s panicking, his lungs are seconds from bursting and he can feel the cold sweat on his face and back and he can smell the blood and the stench of fear and he hears it above him, that  _ voice, _ sneering down at him --

_ Welcome back, Spencer. _

_ Ready for more, pretty boy? _

_ Spencer… _

_ Spencer… _

“Spencer. Spencer!”

Hands. Hands on his face, hands on his shoulders. Someone’s screaming. No, he’s screaming.

“Spencer, it’s okay. You’re okay.”

“Please,” he whimpers. It’s so bright. Where is he? His brain registers the pinching sensation in his right forearm -- the drugs, not again, no more, he has to get it out before--

“Reid!” A new hand, a big one, a strong one, grips his left wrist just before he can get the needle out from under his skin.

“No, I’m sorry, please don’t put me back in there, I’m sorry--”

“Spencer.” Soft. Gentle. Cool fingers against his warm temples.  _ Maeve. _

Maeve is safe.

“Spencer, what are you talking about?”

“The b-box, the box…”

The hand on his wrist slowly lets go and he hears a long, shaky exhale from its owner. Maeve smooths her fingers through his hair.

“Spencer, look at me.”

He blinks to clear the tears from his eyes. She wipes them away as they trickle down his cheeks. She tips her head forward until her forehead rests lightly against his, her large brown eyes staring earnestly into his own.

“No one is  _ ever _ going to do that to you again,” she whispers. “Ever.”

He takes a short breath. His chest still hurts, like someone’s been holding him underwater. He focuses on her face, the curve of her lips, the tip of her nose brushing against his.

“Just a dream,” he manages, his words quiet and wavering.

“Just a dream,” she agrees. She leans back so she can rearrange herself and he sees Morgan still standing by the bed, his expression strained. His stomach twists and he looks away. He sits up and Maeve puts her arms around him, her hand cupping the back of his head when he nestles it into the crook of her shoulder.

“It’ll be okay,” she whispers in his ear. She holds him until he stops shaking.

-

“JJ and Rossi just got back. Hotch wants us to debrief and work on the case. You guys okay if I step out for a bit?”

Spencer’s gaze remains downcast. He hasn’t made eye contact since waking from the nightmare, over an hour ago now. He feels better, less shaken up, but he still can’t bring himself to look at Morgan, afraid he’ll see that same pained expression from before on his face.

“We’ll be fine,” Maeve says softly. Spencer nods.

“Okay.” He can feel Morgan give him a long look before he turns and steps out of the room. He pulls the door until it’s just slightly ajar and leaves it that way, slightly open. Just in case, Spencer thinks.

“Hey.” He looks up at Maeve. She’s watching him from beneath her long, soft eyelashes. “Are you alright?” She lifts her hand to the side of his face and he leans into the touch.

“Mhmm.” He closes his eyes for a moment. Her thumb smooths over his cheekbone. “Just… tired.”

“Do you want to try sleeping again?”

He shakes his head, his face flushing with warmth. “Every time I close my eyes, I just…”

“I know. Me too.”

His eyes close. He takes her hand between both of his. The fact that she understands doesn’t make him feel better. It just reminds him of how guilty he feels.

“Have you talked to your mom yet?”

“No.” He opens his eyes again, staring down at the floor. “I know I need to. I  _ want _ to. I just…” He takes a deep breath. “She doesn’t know what happened, and… I’m afraid when she hears my voice, she’ll just… know.”

“What do you mean?” Maeve murmurs.

“Sometimes… not always, you know, but… sometimes. When something’s wrong, no matter how hard I try to hide it from her, she just… she can tell. She hears it in my voice somehow, I don’t know. She told me once that a mother ‘just knows’.”  _ A mother just knows, Spencer. We’re animals. We feel things. _ “I guess I just… don’t trust myself yet, to talk to her. I don’t know.”

Her fingers curl around his. She doesn’t say anything right away. He sighs.

“I’m a terrible son,” he mutters.

“Hey.” Her tone is sharper than usual. “Don’t say things like that. I know how much you care about your mother. You’ve been looking after her your whole life, and that’s exactly what you’re doing right now. Protecting her. That doesn’t make you a terrible son.”

He’s silent for a moment. He thinks they both know that she hasn’t quite convinced him.

“Have you spoken to your parents yet today?”

She shakes her head. “Agent Hotchner gave them his number so they could call back after we moved hospitals. My mom said she has appointments all afternoon today. They’ll probably call once they get back home.”

“How is she? Your mom.”

She smiles, a small, distant, wistful smile. “She had a surgery a few weeks ago. She said her tumors finally shrunk enough for the doctors to be confident they could remove them without them just… coming back.” She bites her lip. “She tried everything. She was determined to beat it, from the moment she was diagnosed. She--” Her voice cracks. She clears her throat. Spencer gives her hand a light squeeze. “She said she… she had to be sure she stuck around long enough to… to see me again, when I came home.”

He slides his arm around her waist and she scoots closer, leaning into his chest. “You get that from her,” he says softly.

“Get what?”

“How strong you are.”

She looks up at him, and he presses his lips to her forehead in a long, chaste kiss. When he starts to lean away she slips her hand up to the back of his neck and pulls him back down to her so she can kiss him back, on the lips this time. She kisses him gently, softly, warmly, for just the right amount of time and yet not long enough. Never long enough, because he thinks he could kiss her forever and never get tired of it.

She breaks away and he stares down at her, looping a strand of her hair around his index finger, and he forgets to think about anything that isn’t her, and for just one small second everything else in the entire world melts away. It’s a beautiful second. It’s a second that makes him feel whole again, human, strong, real, again.

He’s sure that he’s in love with her. That alone should terrify him, their current circumstances notwithstanding. But for that one small second, he forgets to be afraid.

Neither of them notices at first the door easing open, enough for someone to slip into the room, then pushed fully shut without a sound. It isn’t until Spencer sees the flash of pale blue scrubs in his peripheral vision that he starts, alert to the sudden company of a new, unexpected person.

It’s a nurse he hasn’t seen before, though at first he isn’t sure because their face is mostly obscured by a surgical mask. He stiffens when the orderly, he thinks it’s a man but he isn’t certain, takes a few more steps toward them, having already made it halfway across the room without them noticing. He and Maeve both sit up straighter in the bed, Spencer nervously wrapping his fingers around her uncasted hand.

“Um, we just had a meal and another nurse checked on us just before that,” Maeve says, when the orderly doesn’t speak to either of them. She receives no response.

Alarm bells are already blaring in Spencer’s head, growing louder when the man doesn’t lift his head enough to look either of them in the eye, but takes several steps closer, now only a couple of feet away. He glances up for a moment and he realizes the privacy blinds are shut.

When Morgan left they were open.

Tension coils through Spencer’s body. “Y-You’re not supposed to be--”

He has a syringe in his hand.

All of the air leaves his lungs. For a moment his brain scrambles its signals, trying to reason with him -- Morgan says to trust the nurses, Morgan says no one is going to give him any drugs that might hurt him, Morgan… isn’t here. Morgan isn’t here.

Morgan isn’t here.

But this man is, this man in nurse’s scrubs, and his hand has a syringe in it and that syringe is moving at breakneck speed toward the injection port in one of their IV tubes, and he can’t even tell whose because everything is a tangle of plastic tubes and panic and he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t--

The man lifts his head and looks Spencer dead in the eye.

He understands.

“No, no no no--” Adrenaline floods his body and he can suddenly move his limbs and use his brain again and he wraps his fingers around the plastic tube taped against Maeve’s forearm and pulls.

He hears her startled cry but his hands keep moving, dropping the mess of needle and tubing and tape to the floor before ripping his own IV out and flinging it away from him.

“Run,” he tells her, and for a deadly split second she just stares at him with wide, shocked eyes, and he sees the syringe raising overhead now in his peripheral vision. He shoves her away from him, pushing her off the side of the bed, barely twisting back around in time to see the needle plummeting toward him. He kicks his leg out and it catches on the inside of the man’s elbow, deflecting the swing.

He chances a look down at the floor. Maeve is scrambling backward from where she’s fallen, realization spreading across her features.

“Run!” he gasps again. A hand twists through his hair, snapping his head back, and the syringe raises again, this time pointed at the vein in his neck. He grabs the wrist holding it, struggling to keep the needle at arm’s length. He swings blindly with his other hand, then in a surge of desperation flings his entire body forward. They both fall roughly to the floor and Spencer’s vision tunnels, zeroing in on the syringe even as pain from the fall floods through him. He grips the man’s wrist with both hands and lifts it, slams it to the floor, lifts it, slams it down, lifts it again, slams it--

The syringe catches air, hitting the floor a few inches from his head. He lashes out at it with one hand, as hard as he can. It goes skittering over the linoleum to the other side of the room.

_ Run. _

Maeve has disappeared. He scrambles to get up, only managing to pull one foot forward before a calloused hand wraps around his other ankle and yanks. His stomach smacks against the floor and he rolls as he’s pulled backward, trying to kick out with his free leg.

Something hard smacks against his knee and he grunts, pain pulsating up his thigh and down his calf. It’s enough to keep him still for another split second, and that’s enough for a set of thick fingers to wrap around his neck and squeeze. He sees a flash of metal and stares up the barrel of the pistol pointed at his face, both hands scratching and pulling desperately at the fingers bearing down on his throat.

Darkness starts to creep around the edges of his vision and he doesn’t know why but he reaches up and pulls the mask down the other man’s face.

“Miss me, pretty boy?”

The safety clicks.

No--

_ Bang. _

A high-pitched ringing fills his ears. The sound of the shot reverberates through the room, bouncing off the walls over and over. He pulls a strangled breath into his lungs, finding the grip on his throat suddenly loosened. Black spots swim in his vision. There’s a weight bearing down on top of him and he shoves upward with both hands, pushing desperately against the body suffocating his own. His sight clears as he sucks in another shaking breath. There’s blood pooling on the speckled linoleum. But it isn’t his.

The ringing starts to quiet and he hears his name being repeated from above and he looks up at the doorway. Morgan is planted in it, lowering his gun, looking at Spencer with wide eyes, shock and horror painting his face. Spencer stares back, panting, and the adrenaline begins to evaporate, allowing the full weight of what’s just happened to descend and settle upon him.

“Spencer--”

He scrambles to his feet, tripping twice before he can get them both to support his weight, and stumbles forward, flinging himself in Morgan’s direction and landing squarely against his chest. Morgan’s arms shake and hesitate before circling around his thin body and Spencer clutches at the fabric of Morgan’s shirt, pressing his face into its folds and pulling sharp, shuddering breaths into his lungs from behind it.

Morgan stares past him at the body that he’s just put a bullet through, watching the pool of blood grow in diameter and struggling to make sense of what’s just happened. A shaking set of fingers brush his shoulder and he looks down at Maeve, touching him through her cast. Her eyes are wide and unbelieving as she follows his gaze to the body. She reaches blindly with her other hand, fingers groping until they find Spencer’s and wrap tightly around them. She looks up at Morgan. Her expression is slack, blanker than it ought to be, her pupils still clouded with shock, her brain still protecting her from the full realization of what has happened.

“That’s the one who acted like you,” she whispers.

Spencer starts to cry.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hi lovies!!! okay so here's the deal. i know it's been a big ol hot minute since my last chapter, almost 2 weeks i think, which kinda sucks and i'm sorry to leave ya hanging!! i've had some things going on and i am also, without getting too much into it, going to be out of town for about a month in a couple of weeks, so i wanted to go ahead and gently lower everyone's expectations a little (lol) if i can just because i don't know exactly how often i'll be able to put new chapters out for the next couple of months. i definitely already didn't mean to wait so long posting this one but a) i've been trying to stay a little ahead and i still haven't finished chapter 10 :( so i was hesitant to post chapter 9 and then time just kind of got away from me until now, and b) i've had a bunch going on and sometimes i get to a place when i'm writing where even if i know what happens next i get kind of "stuck" and it's hard to get back into it. BUT i wanted to let you guys know that i am NOT going to drop this fic and leave you without the ending, okay? i'm going to try my absolute darnedest to give everyone all the angst and emotion and drama and suspense and resolution that you came for, even if it takes awhile. :) i do know already how it ends and most of what happens in between so even if it takes me awhile to get it all written down i don't expect to get too stuck to keep going. so i don't want you guys to worry if some time passes in between chapters :) and hopefully everyone still sticks around to see what happens if i can't do super fast updates like i was in the beginning!
> 
> anyway i hope you guys like this chapter, there are some cute touchy feely emotions that i really enjoyed writing so i hope you enjoy reading them. and thanks as always for reading, and espeeeeeecially everyone who's left kudos and comments to keep me going and put a lil smile on my face. hope you're all doing well and hanging in. love you xx

They’ve gathered in the waiting area at the far end of the hall, chairs pulled together in a tight circle around the bench that Derek, Spencer, and Maeve have all squeezed onto, at Spencer’s insistence that they sit with their backs to the wall. He’s barely let go of either of them for the past hour, and sits now with one hand clutching Morgan’s wrist and his right arm wrapped protectively around Maeve.

Morgan’s brain barely registers Spencer’s vice grip, too preoccupied replaying the events of the last hour; Maeve bursting from the hospital room not even ten minutes after the team sat down, gasping for Morgan. Him not registering at first that she’s missing her IV, thinking for a moment that he’s jumping up to respond to another nightmare or panic attack or doctor with poor bedside manner. The way alarm descends upon the rest of them when Maeve doesn’t follow him back in but instead latches onto Hotch and hides behind him.

The gun pointed between Spencer’s eyes.

He didn’t think. He just reacted. The bullet passed through that man’s skull before Morgan even fully grasped what was going on.

Maeve told him, in short, broken sentences, what had happened, while Spencer clung to him, sobbing. How Spencer had realized, pulled their IVs out in time, pushed her out of their attacker’s reach when she didn’t react, fought him off so she could run. Morgan had looked around, spotted the syringe on the floor a few feet away from where they stood, realized how hard Spencer must have had to fight, in his weakened state, for at least a full minute before Maeve had made it out to them.

Spencer still has the instinct to react. To fight back. To survive.

Morgan had moved them out of the doorway, turned them away from the body. Maeve had trailed off in her explanation, the full weight of what had almost just happened finally dawning on her.

They both could have died.

Spencer nearly did.

_ That’s the one who acted like you. _

He shudders. Spencer sneaks a sideways glance at him and pulls the blanket JJ brought them tighter around his and Maeve’s shoulders.

Maeve hasn’t said a word in nearly an hour. To be fair, the rest of them haven’t said much either. Emily, Hotch, and Rossi are still down the hall talking to the hospital staff and local police. Penelope is sitting in the chair to his left, with JJ on her other side, their hands tightly intertwined. The laptop is open on the end table in front of them but neither are paying it much attention as it silently runs a photograph of their dead unsub’s face through facial recognition programs.

Everyone looks up when Emily steps around the corner toward their little huddle. “They’re almost done,” she says quietly. Her eyes travel down to Spencer and Maeve. “You guys need anything?”

Maeve stares through Emily for a couple of seconds before her gaze drifts away again. She doesn’t say anything, but her uncasted hand feels through the blanket for the arm Spencer has wrapped around her until it finds his fingers and wraps tightly around them. Spencer looks at Emily and shakes his head for the both of them before looking away. Emily’s mouth forms a thin line before she rearranges her facial features back into neutral positions and sits in the chair next to JJ. Everyone falls silent again. Morgan can feel every breath Spencer takes next to him. He tries to focus on that for the next minute or two instead of the playback looping in his head.

Everyone looks up again when Hotch and Rossi round the corner. They linger for a moment, Hotch surveying the group grimly before they sit down. Some of the tension leaves Maeve’s body when Hotch lowers himself into the chair next to her. She makes eye contact with him for a second, seeming to mentally come back from wherever it is her brain has wandered off to.

“Okay,” Hotch says, after another couple of seconds. “The earliest Spencer and Maeve can be cleared for travel is tomorrow morning. The doctor expressed that he would rather keep them for another forty-eight hours but considering the circumstances…” He trails off, but the whole circle collectively flinches anyway. He clears his throat. “The room across from us--” He gestures over his shoulder at the door closest to the waiting area. “--was vacated this morning, so they’ll prepare it for Maeve and Spencer to stay in tonight. We should be able to check them out by ten tomorrow morning and be on our way back to Virginia shortly after.”

Morgan feels the wave of tension that coils through Spencer’s body. His gaze shifts from Hotch’s face to Spencer’s, finding it painted with fresh worry. “Spence?”

“Where will we…” He stops, sucks in a shuddering breath. “My… apartment…”

“We know,” JJ says.

“You don’t have to go there,” Morgan adds quickly. They’ve all seen it; the broken deadbolt, the signs of struggle, books and files scattered across the hardwood, blood on the floor, blood on the sheets…

Morgan wouldn’t blame Spencer if he never stepped foot in there again.

Some of the fear has left Spencer’s face, replaced by confusion. “Then… where…?”

“Consider Casa de Rossi open for business,” Dave says, with a smile that doesn’t fully reach his eyes. Spencer glances warily from him to Hotch.

“We believe the safest place for you and Maeve right now is somewhere we can all stay close while also working the case,” Hotch says, choosing his words carefully. “Dave has offered to let us use his home as a headquarters of sorts. That is, if you two are comfortable with that arrangement.”

Spencer’s gaze slides back to Rossi. “Really?” His voice comes out thin and nervous.

Rossi’s eyebrows go up just a little. “Yes, really. Why does everyone always act so surprised when I have company over?”

A tiny,  _ tiny _ fragment of a smile flickers across Spencer’s face, just for a moment, but long enough for everyone in the circle to see. A fraction of tension leaves everyone’s shoulders at the familiarity of the exchange. Spencer’s expression sobers and he looks down at Maeve, whispering something into her ear, too quiet for the rest of them to make out.

Maeve’s facial features contort, the most she’s reacted to anything in over an hour. She turns her head, an affronted look on her eyes as she frowns up at him. “No, I want to stay with you,” she murmurs back, loud enough for the team to hear. She sounds confused and a little hurt. Morgan assumes Spencer asked her something along the lines of whether she wouldn’t rather go to stay with her parents when they get back.

Hotch clears his throat and Spencer ducks his head, an unreadable expression on his face. Maeve closes her eyes and rests her head on his shoulder, seeming to disconnect again from their surroundings.

“Alright.” Hotch watches both of them as he continues. “We can arrange to have some of your things brought over when we get back. Whatever you need, just let one of us know. Maeve, your parents packed up your apartment a few months ago, so we can ask them to bring over whatever you want.”

Maeve’s eyes open again, finding Hotch’s face. “Have they called yet?” She sits up a little, a hint of panic in her posture. “What time is it in DC?”

Hotch regards her with caution before glancing briefly down at his watch. “A little after three-thirty. I haven’t gotten a call.”

“Can you--” She sucks in a quick breath. “When they do, can you not… I don’t want them to know what just…” The hand she has protruding from the blanket, holding Spencer’s, trembles before it tightens its grip around his fingers. “They’ll worry.”

“Of course. And I’ll let you know as soon as they call.”

She nods, the hysteria draining from her body. She seems to tune out again. Spencer’s facial features are still pinched. When he notices Morgan studying him he flushes and drops his gaze to the floor, but his left hand still remains curled around Morgan’s forearm.

“Um--” They all look up when a young woman -- Nurse Topping, from yesterday, Morgan thinks -- peeks around the corner, eyes sweeping their tight circle before settling on Morgan’s face. “Sorry to interrupt, um, the new room is ready. We need to get Dr. Reid and Miss Donovan… checked out.”

She seems to be choosing her words very carefully. Morgan can’t tell if she’s simply being tactful or whether the entire hospital staff has been discussing Morgan’s stand-off with Dr. Jasper. Either way, he senses her stress, as much as she’s trying to hide it.

He can also sense Spencer’s, mostly from the fingernails that have just dug into his arm. He breaks eye contact with the nurse for a moment to look at Spencer and Maeve. He can’t see Maeve’s face, nestled against Spencer’s shoulder, but Spencer still has a strained look on his. Morgan can see his panic clear as day, even though he’s still avoiding everyone’s gaze, eyes boring resolutely into the linoleum below his feet.

Realizing no one else has responded to the nurse, Morgan looks back at her and nods. “Can you give us a few minutes? And we’ll meet you in there?”

“Sure. Of course.” She disappears again, but Spencer doesn’t relax now that she’s gone.

Morgan looks to Hotch. “Anything else?”

Hotch glances at Spencer and Maeve. “JJ and Rossi just got back from the motel, but everyone else needs to get some sleep before we head back to Virginia.”

He feels Spencer grow even more tense than before, but before he or Morgan can say anything, Penelope interjects; “I’m not leaving. All due respect, sir, but I don’t think any of us should.”

He frowns at her. “I’m not suggesting anyone leave, Garcia. It’s safer for everyone if we all stay here. But since none of us have gotten much sleep in the last few days, everyone needs to take shifts and get at least a few hours in.”

“Including you?” Emily smirks, raising her eyebrows at him.

Hotch’s frown deepens, but he doesn’t debate her. Morgan wonders if he’s gotten any sleep at all aside from the few times he’s seen him nod off in the waiting area. “I’ll go back to the motel at some point tonight and collect everyone’s things so we’re ready to go in the morning. Also, I’ve already alerted the hospital staff to this, but just so that everyone is aware, the only individuals who are to be allowed inside of the hospital room from now on, outside of this team, are Dr. Jasper, Nurse Topping, Nurse Orville, and Nurse Chapman from the night shift. One of us will be outside the door at all times to ensure no one else goes inside.”

Morgan finally feels Spencer relax, just a hair. He looks down at him again. “You ready?”

Spencer releases a shuddering sigh and gives a short, jerky nod. Maeve just unfolds herself a little from where she’s pressed up against him, a blank look on her face. Morgan stands, and Spencer struggles to his feet, still gripping Morgan’s arm for support. Hotch gets up as well and helps Maeve off the bench with one strong, guiding hand, which she allows without the slightest flinch.

If their circumstances felt slightly less macabre at the moment Morgan would find it kind of funny that Maeve has bonded so strongly to Hotch of all people, easily the most intimidating member of their team -- possibly one of the most intimidating people Morgan has ever met. He and Rossi  _ were _ the ones who found her, though, and Hotch was the one who rode with her in the ambulance, sat with her in the hospital room, helped her contact her parents. It doesn’t hurt that Maeve seems especially keyed into other people’s emotions and Hotch has the uncanny ability to project warmth and kindness while his facial expression looks about as warm and kind as a brick wall.

Hotch walks behind them until they get to the doorway of the hospital room, where nurses Topping and Orville -- introduced to them the day prior as Nurse Jackie -- are waiting inside. Since Spencer’s still clinging to him like his life depends on it -- and maybe, Morgan thinks with a pang, it might, in a sense -- he assumes it’s best that he stay for the exam.

“We’ll be right outside,” Hotch murmurs, more to Spencer and Maeve than to Morgan, even though Morgan is the only one who gives a nod of acknowledgement in response.

Morgan closes the door and pulls the privacy blinds shut. He walks Spencer and Maeve to the first of two hospital beds. Spencer finally lets go of Morgan long enough to climb onto the thin mattress, holding Maeve by the waist for support as she pulls herself up beside him best she can with one good arm.

Morgan leans with his back against the wall by the door during the exam, keeping a watchful eye on Maeve and Spencer. Spencer is relatively calm, stoic even, wincing a bit when touched but allowing Nurse Orville to take his blood pressure and temperature, then check over his arms, shoulders, spine, and ribcage for anything worse than bruising from the fall.

Maeve’s demeanor, however, has shifted dramatically. She recoils every time she’s touched or sees Nurse Topping’s hand moving toward her body. Spencer reaches over the mattress and lays his hand on her cast, covering her protruding fingertips with his own. She doesn’t look up at him, but she also doesn’t shrink away from him like she does the nurse. His concern is clear as he watches her, unable to see her face through her long curls.

Morgan is so intent on watching the two of them that he forgets for a moment to keep an eye on what the nurses are doing, as well. That is, until Maeve suddenly gasps and cowers against Spencer, one arm extended toward the nurse as if to fend her off. Morgan pushes off the wall into an upright position, only just noticing that Nurse Topping has been prepping an IV.

Spencer follows Maeve’s gaze and pales. “Wait--” He looks at Morgan, eyes frantic.

Morgan takes a step forward. “Considering what just happened, can we forgo the needles at this point? We were all under the impression that they wouldn’t need them anymore at this point anyway.”

“Oh… sorry…” Nurse Topping flushes under Morgan’s stare. “You’re right, of course. There’s just one more round of antibiotics left, but…” She glances across at the other nurse. “We can administer it in pill form instead. Sorry. I wasn’t… sorry.”

She dumps the materials she’s prepared into the waste bin on the wall and rushes past Morgan out of the room. It strikes him that as young as she is, in such a small, rural town, she’s probably never experienced a medical case like this and probably never will again. At the very least, it’s almost certainly the first time someone has snuck in to assault one of her patients.

Nurse Orville flashes him a small, apologetic smile while she removes her gloves. They pull off with a sharp snap that causes Maeve to flinch. “We’ll come back with the antibiotics in a few minutes.” He nods at her and she leaves as well.

“Hey,” Spencer whispers. He brushes Maeve’s hair back from her face with his fingers, trying to get her to look up at him. Morgan can see the tears already formed in her eyes as she slowly raises them to meet Spencer’s, her lower lip quivering.

“Hey,” he repeats, the worry in his voice more pronounced. She starts to cry. Spencer puts his arms around her and she leans forward, her face pressing into the crook of his shoulder.

“You were right,” she whispers, her words muffled by his skin and hospital gown. “You were right.”

Spencer wraps both of his arms around her quaking shoulders. “I know,” he murmurs.

“They could have -- he almost--”

“I know.”

He doesn’t try to calm her down, just holds her and lets her cry. Morgan thinks maybe he wants her to know she can cry in front of him if she needs to.

She quiets a couple of minutes later, well after Morgan begins to feel incredibly awkward just standing there watching. The nurse comes back with two tiny cups and watches Maeve and Spencer swallow the small white pills inside before leaving again.

Morgan eases onto the plastic couch, settling into a slightly more comfortable position. Spencer strokes Maeve’s hair and she leans against him, both of them sitting in silence for several long moments. Spencer murmurs something to her that Morgan can’t hear and she nods in response. He helps her lay back on the bed and pulls the covers up over her, helping her get settled. He remains in an upright position, sitting next to her and continuing to stroke her hair as she starts to drift off.

She’s out in a matter of minutes, but Spencer sits very still and watches her face for a long time before he slowly slides off the side of the bed, still looking at Maeve to make sure he doesn’t wake her. He folds his arms tightly across his chest and turns to face Morgan, taking slow steps until he’s close enough to lower himself onto the opposite end of the couch.

They sit, neither of them speaking, both of them watching Maeve sleep, until Spencer finally breaks the silence.

“How did they get in?”

Morgan shakes his head. “We’re waiting for Garcia to finish looking at the security footage, but he probably just walked in wearing the scrubs, or put them on in a restroom before coming up here.”

“No, I…” Spencer exhales shakily and folds his hand together. He stares up at the ceiling, then at Maeve again, then down at his feet, looking anywhere and everywhere but Morgan’s face. “The apartment,” he whispers, after a long pause.

“Oh.  _ Oh,” _ Morgan murmurs. He closes his eyes for a moment and rubs his fingers against his eyelids. Neither of them miss how Spencer calls it  _ the _ apartment, not  _ his _ apartment. “The latch on the door had been cut. It looked like they had picked the locks and then cut the latch. None of your neighbors remembered seeing or hearing anything that night. So they were able to get in without making a lot of noise.”

Spencer lets the information sink in for a moment before he reacts, nodding a couple of times, long and slow, and resting his chin on his folded hands. “Neighbors wouldn’t have noticed,” he mumbles. “None of them are ever up that late.”

“What time was it?”

“Two thirty-six,” Spencer replies automatically. He remembers that split second where he’d looked at the clock, the way his brain had struggled to put together what was happening in that instant before he realized. “I didn’t hear them. I didn’t even wake up until…” A deep shudder passes through him. He clenches his jaw tightly. “They were just… there.”

“What happened in the apartment?” Morgan asks softly.

Spencer closes his eyes, trying to remind himself to breathe. He can still feel the hands on him, holding him down, pushing his face into the bed, gripping his legs, pulling his arms behind his back…

_...A zip tie loops around his wrists and pulls tight, until the plastic bites into his skin. He opens his mouth to scream and a wad of cloth gets shoved inside, choking him, stifling his cries. His head lifts off the sheets for a moment and he struggles to see through the darkness, through the tears stinging his eyes, blinding him. He has to calm down, he has to stay calm, he has to remember to breathe, think, keep himself together. _

_ He catches a brief glimpse of one of them, the shadow coming into focus for just a moment, bent over him, and the shadow has a face, features. He realizes they’re not wearing masks. They’re not trying to hide their identity from him. He’s good at his job, he knows what that means. _

_ Panic sears through him, just before he’s shoved into the mattress again, a strong set of fingers curling around the back of his head and holding it in place. He feels something small and sharp and cold brush the crook of his right arm. He cries out against the wad of fabric in his mouth. _

_ “Wait,” the voice above him commands. _

_ He feels the tip of the needle, lingering, skimming the surface of his skin. He strains against the hands on him, terror taking hold, gripping him like the fingers on his shoulders and waist and ankles and thighs. _

_ “Fuck him in his own bed first.” _

“Spencer?”

He gasps, flinching away from Derek’s hand on his shoulder. He’s forgotten where he is for a moment and he realizes there are tears streaming down his face.

“I’m sorry,” Morgan murmurs. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

Spencer squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head. “No, I -- I just -- I can’t--”

“I know.”

“I can n-never… I can never go back there,” Spencer whispers.

“You don’t have to. Okay? You never have to go back there. I’ll get your stuff, I’ll get your things packed up and moved out for you, okay? I’m gonna take care of everything. I promise. You never have to go back.”

Spencer nods in short, jerky motions, feeling his lower lip quivering, giving way to the sharp, spluttering sob that bubbles up from his throat. He feels Derek’s palm, hesitant and light, on his shoulder again. He covers his face with his hands and leans into the touch, allowing Morgan’s arms to wrap fully around him this time. And he cries.

Morgan feels like someone’s reached into his chest and started squeezing. He tries not to think about the day Spencer went missing, but the memories come flooding back anyway. The uneasy feeling when Spencer didn’t pick up any of their calls that morning, when Morgan expected him to go home for two or three hours to placate Hotch’s request that he get “some amount of sleep” and then rush right back to Quantico. The way that uneasiness turned to straight worry on the drive to Spencer’s apartment as he remembered how frantic Spencer had been the entire day prior, his increasing frustration and near-hysteria as the hours went by and they grew no closer to finding Maeve. The anxiety in his stomach as he knocked on the door with zero response. The way the air left his lungs when he realized the door was unlocked. The way he called out for his friend as he stepped into the apartment, gun drawn, already knowing he’d get no response. The panic that froze his entire body when he saw the bedroom; the comforter pulled completely off the mattress, books and papers that had been previously stacked on the dresser and nightstand strewn haphazardly around the floor, the spots of blood on the sheets…

“Derek.”

He starts at Spencer’s quiet whisper of his name and realizes his friend’s tears have ebbed. He’s raised his head from Morgan’s shoulder, his glistening eyes on Morgan’s face.

“Your heart is racing.”

He’s right. He takes a deep breath and finds Spencer’s hand, squeezing gently.

“Hotch sent you to get me that morning, didn’t he?” Spencer murmurs.

“Yeah.” Morgan exhales. “He did.”

Spencer’s quiet, for so long that Morgan turns to look at him again. He looks away, chewing at the fingernails of his free hand. “It was all my blood.”

“I know.”

“I tried to… just scratch someone, or something, just… anything to… to help, but my… my hands were…”

“I know, Spence.”

A small, reflexive sniffle escapes him. He rubs his hand over his eyes. “It happened so fast,” he mumbles. “There were so many… h-hands…”

“It’s okay.” He squeezes Spencer’s fingers again. “It’s not your fault,” he reminds him. Spencer’s jaw clenches, but he nods. Morgan hesitates. He shouldn’t push any more than he already has, but Spencer seems a lot calmer than Morgan would have expected him to be considering the day’s events, and he’s already opened up more in the last five minutes than he has in the last two days. Morgan’s getting a tiny sense that maybe Spencer  _ wants _ to start talking about it, even if he doesn’t fully realize.

He hopes he’s not wrong.

“Do you remember leaving the apartment? Where you went, what they said?”

Spencer stares down at his feet, still avoiding Morgan’s gaze. “No, I… they drugged me. I felt the needle go in after--” He stops abruptly.

“After?” Morgan prompts.

Spencer shakes his head, his face drained of color again like it was a few minutes ago. Morgan feels the nails of his hand digging in as it squeezes tighter around Morgan’s fingers. A couple of stray tears drip from Spencer’s eyes and Morgan realizes, too late.

Blood on the sheets.

He feels his hand, the one that isn’t trapped in Spencer’s vice grip, start to shake, and he clenches it into a fist so Spencer won’t see. “Spencer,” he says, trying to keep his voice even, trying to keep the horror he feels from seeping into his tone.

Spencer releases him, both hands raising to cover his face. “I can’t say it out loud.” His voice cracks.

“You don’t have to say it. You don’t have to.” He carefully puts his arms around Spencer and hugs him close again. Spencer shivers but allows him.

“It’s okay,” Derek whispers. “You’re okay. You’ll be okay.” The words don’t help, they aren’t going to fix it and he knows that. There are no words, there will never be words to fix this, he’s known that since the first day Carl Buford laid his filthy hands on him. He tries to keep from shaking as he holds Spencer, fresh rage flooding through him every time he tries to calm himself down. He saw Spencer’s file, he had known before this conversation, but -- in his own apartment.  _ In his own bed. _

“We’ll get them. I swear to God.” He knows he’s said it so many times, and it sounds like such an empty promise at this point that he hates hearing himself say it. He just doesn’t know what else to say.

There’s a light rapping at the door, and Spencer sits up, quickly swiping his hands over his face to clear the tear tracks away. JJ peeks in before opening the door enough for her whole body to slip through.

“Hey,” she whispers, noting Maeve asleep on the bed. “You guys okay?”

Morgan glances at Spencer, who’s already nodding, meeting JJ’s eyes briefly before dropping his gaze.

“What’s up?” Morgan asks, when she doesn’t say anything right away.

She holds up the three water bottles that she’s somehow holding all in her right hand and passes them to him. “You guys need anything else?”

He looks at Spencer again, who shakes his head. He throws a quick look toward the water bottles in Morgan’s hand, a weird, almost nervous look on his face that Morgan doesn’t understand.

“I think we’re okay,” he tells JJ, studying Spencer for another couple of seconds before turning back to her.

She nods, looking past him at Spencer’s face, seeming to have noticed the odd reaction, as well. “Okay. Hotch and I are awake if you need anything.”

The door clicks shut behind her. Morgan sets two of the bottles on the floor and offers the third to Spencer. His brow furrows when Spencer shrinks away, wrapping his arms around his torso instead of taking the water.

“Reid?”

“Um. Sorry. I…” He chews at his nail again. Morgan isn’t sure what’s going on, but it seems like for whatever reason the water bottle is part of the problem, so he sets it on the other side of the couch beside him, where Spencer can’t see it. Spencer doesn’t say anything else for a moment. Morgan waits, watching Spencer cast nervous glances toward him that don’t quite make it up to his face.

“They only ever brought bottled water,” he says finally, speaking very slow. “And sometimes they… put something in it. Whatever it was, just… I would just be throwing up, un--” His voice cracks. He clears his throat. “Un… Uncontrollably. Even when nothing else was coming out. Until I thought my stomach would rupture from it.”

“How often did this happen?” Morgan asks softly.

Spencer’s shoulders go up in a short shrug. “Often. I don’t know. Maybe… once or twice, out of every ten times.” He stares down at the floor. “It didn’t have a taste. The bottles were always sealed. There was no way to tell, I…” He shakes his head, looking helpless. A stray tear slips from his eye and he quickly reaches up to brush it away. “I couldn’t just  _ stop _ drinking it…”

Morgan nods, trying not to let the rush of anger he feels show on his face. It’s so unbelievably cruel, he almost can’t wrap his head around it. Obviously the bastards knew he would keep drinking the water. He would have died if he hadn’t. Morgan wouldn’t blame Spencer if he never touched another bottle of anything ever again.

He stands up, taking the water bottle with him. He can feel Spencer watching him as he steps to the cart on the other side of the room. He takes two plastic cups from the stack there and turns them right-side-up, then opens the bottle and pours water into both cups. He brings them back over to the couch and sits down again, turning so that he’s facing Spencer. He makes eye contact, making sure Spencer is watching before he raises one of the cups to his lips and drinks the entirety of its contents.

Spencer’s still watching when he lowers the now-empty cup. He holds the other one out and Spencer hesitates for a split second before reaching up to take it. He lowers it to his lap, holding it with both hands and staring down at the water’s surface. He glances sideways a couple of times, like he’s waiting for Morgan to leap up and run for the bathroom. Finally, after several long minutes, during which neither of them says a word, he starts to lift the cup. It shakes between his trembling hands as he tilts it toward his mouth, taking several small, drawn-out sips. He’s still clearly uneasy, but as the minutes tick by and nothing bad happens to him or Morgan some of the tension drains from his body, and he continues to tentatively drink the water.

“This is so dumb,” he mumbles, once he’s about halfway through the cup. 

“It’s not dumb,” Morgan says immediately. “Absolutely not.” He puts his hand on Spencer’s shoulder. “And you do  _ not _ have to justify or apologize for being afraid, or upset, or anything else. Ever. Okay?”

“Okay,” Spencer whispers. He picks at the rim of the cup. “I, um. I know Maeve told you, about…”

Morgan gathers that he’s talking about the unsub who, as Maeve put it, “acted like him”. “She did. Not in detail.”

Spencer nods, staring down at the cup.

“That’s what you were trying to tell me yesterday, wasn’t it?”

He nods again, taking a deep, shuddering breath. “Thank you for being patient with me,” he says, so quiet that Morgan barely hears.

A lump wells up in his throat. He’s speechless for a moment, wondering if Spencer has just been waiting for Derek to tell him to get a grip or something this whole time. “I… You’re welcome.” He clears his throat. “Listen, I know there have been times where I might have… picked on you, or been dismissive of things you’ve said, or made you feel small.”

“You don’t make me feel small,” Spencer whispers, still staring down at the cup.

Morgan exhales. “Alright, well. Either way.” He looks down at his hands, thinking for a moment. “You’re like a brother to me, Reid. And I know you didn’t have siblings growing up, but… sometimes, with siblings, you take it too far, because you are so close, and because you can be so real with that person and disappoint them and make them mad and at the end of the day they’re still going to be there. Hell, my sisters and I were always screaming at each other about something. Drove my mother crazy.”

He pauses. Spencer doesn’t look up, but Morgan can tell he’s listening intently.

“I just wanted you to know that if I have ever crossed that line with you, if I have ever made you feel bad about yourself or like you couldn’t fully be yourself around me, I’m really sorry. I never, ever want to do that to you. And I’m gonna be here for you in whatever capacity you need me to be. And if anything I do or say makes you feel upset, or afraid, I want you to feel like you can tell me so I know never to do it again.”

Spencer nods. He wraps his hand back around Morgan’s. “You’re like a brother to me, too,” he murmurs. There are fresh tears in his eyes. They start to roll down his face. Morgan puts his arm around Spencer’s shoulders.

They sit for a while. Spencer lets a few more tears slip out, but doesn’t say anything else.

“You should probably get some sleep,” Morgan says finally. “Tomorrow’s gonna be a long day.”

Spencer’s silent for a few more long seconds. “I don’t know if I can,” he admits. His gaze travels back up to Maeve, still sleeping peacefully across from them. “Every time I close my eyes, I… panic.”

“Yeah,” Morgan murmurs. He’s familiar with the feeling. “I’m right here though. Okay? Everyone else is right outside literally guarding this room.” He hesitates. “I know after today it probably doesn’t feel like it, but you a _ re _ safe here. With us. I…” He sighs. “He never should have been able to get into your room. We never should have let that happen. I’m so sorry we let him get to you.”

“I know.” Spencer exhales shakily. Morgan feels him shudder. “But you couldn’t have known.”

“We should have been expecting it,” Morgan mutters. Spencer glances up at him, a silent question in his eyes.  _ Damn. _ He shouldn’t have said that. “I mean--”

“I know,” Spencer says again, his voice barely above a whisper. His gaze wanders from Morgan’s face, a slight glassy look in his eyes. “I knew they’d be back.”

Morgan feels his insides go cold. “What?” He pulls his arm back from Spencer’s shoulders so he can turn to look at him.

Spencer’s jaw clenches. His unseeing gaze bores into the wall opposite them. “You didn’t find us until they wanted you to. They’ve always had a plan. This is still part of it.”

Dread seeps through Morgan’s insides. “You don’t know that,” he says, even though he knows, deep down, that Spencer’s right, that he’s echoing the very fear the team has been expressing to one another for the last two days: that they’re all still right where the unsubs want them.

Spencer drops his gaze to the surface of his half-empty cup of water. “That’d be a pretty good torture tactic, wouldn’t it?”

Morgan stares at him. “What… do you mean?”

“Reprieve.” Spencer’s voice is so cold and empty it sends a shiver crawling up Morgan’s spine. “Make us think it’s over. Give us this time together before--”

“Stop.” He grabs Spencer by the forearm. This seems to jar him from whatever trance he’s slipped into and his whole body starts to shake. Morgan plucks the cup from his hands before the water can spill out and sets it on the floor at their feet. He puts his hands on Spencer’s shoulders and gently turns his body toward himself. “Look at me.”

Spencer raises his eyes unwillingly to meet Morgan’s. He can see the fear there, but it’s masked by something else. Something that looks a lot like resignation.

“Listen. I do not give a damn about what their plan is.” He tries, but he can’t keep his voice from shaking. “Whatever they think they’re going to do -- to you, to Maeve, to any of us -- it’s never going to happen. I  _ will not _ let them take you again. I will die before I let that happen to you.”

“Don’t say that.” Spencer grabs him by the wrist, fingernails digging in. Morgan winces.

“Okay. I’m sorry. But I mean it. Whether or not you believe me right now.” He leans in. “I  _ will not _ let them hurt you again. Okay?”

“Okay,” Spencer whispers.

He looks anything but convinced.


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> whooooooooaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAA what's up!!! I bet ya'll thought I went off and forgot all about my intentions to ever give you a satisfying end to this fic but nooooope my friends, we are just getting started!! okay well maybe not so much that as we're about at the halfway point but. anyway hi!! so sorry for leaving you hanging for quite a bit longer than I originally thought I would, I have had a crazy past couple of months but I've been working whenever I had a spare moment all this past week to get this chapter done! it was originally going to be a little bit longer but I decided to cap it a few scenes early so I could go ahead and get it out to you guys and make sure you all know I'm still alive and kicking. <3 the next couple of chapters are going to be real juicy and exciting, just how ya'll like 'em. so if you're still here and along for the ride, thank you so very much, I love you, and I hope you're taking care of yourselves out there in this wild wild world. leave me a comment to say hi <3

“Knock, knock.”

Maeve, Spencer, and Morgan all look up to see Penelope at the door, a short stack of clothes in her arms. She steps fully into the room and sets the pile on the bed next to Spencer.

“I know this might be a little weird but um, I have… some clothes, for both of you. Your clothes.” She twines her fingers together. “I’ve had them in a go-bag for a while now for when, um… You know. Just in case.”

Spencer stares at the clothes, too surprised to say anything.

“I have, um, a bunch of different, um…” She starts to sort through the stack, undoing the careful folds of the fabric, then stops, folding her hands back together. “I just didn’t want you to have to come home in, um, a spare pair of scrubs, or something. So. Yes. Okay.”

She starts to turn away. Spencer reaches out and grabs her hand before she moves out of reach.

“Thank you,” he whispers. “That’s… that’s really…”

She squeezes his hand with both of hers. “You’re welcome. Of course. We’re leaving in an hour, okay?”

He nods, and so does Maeve.

“Thank you,” she says, echoing Spencer.

Penelope beams back at her. “Of course. I’ll leave you to it, my darlings.” She releases Spencer’s hand and snatches up Morgan’s. “Come on. They need privacy.”

“You guys okay?” Morgan asks, throwing the words back over his shoulder as Penelope marches him toward the door. Spencer barely has time to nod before she’s propelled him fully out of the room and shut the door behind them.

Spencer doesn’t move for a moment, staring down at the clothes next to him. He can’t help but think, with a sharp pang in his chest, that despite these being their clothes, the odds of them fitting him or Maeve properly anymore are slim to none.

“Hey,” Maeve murmurs. Her fingers brush his and he looks up at her. “You alright?”

He nods, lowering his gaze back to the clothes. “I’m going to change in the bathroom,” he mumbles, feeling the slight flush that colors his cheeks.

“Okay,” she says quietly. He can feel her eyes following his movements as he picks up the half of the stack that he recognizes as his and takes them into the bathroom, shutting the door behind him.

He drops the clothes by the sink and sags against the counter, staring down at the drain for a moment before hesitantly raising his eyes to the mirror. He absorbs the sight of his reflection for a moment; the slightly sunken skin around his eyes and cheekbones, the faded, yellowing bruises along his forehead and jaw; his shaggy hair, hanging long and dull around his shoulders; the frighteningly pale shade his skin has faded to. He wraps his hand around the bottom of his hospital gown and lifts it, all the way up his body and over his head, and lets it fall to the floor.

The nurse removed his bandages a couple of hours ago. The cool air around him hits his naked body and a shiver crawls up his spine, then another one as he scrutinizes himself in the mirror. His fingers brush gingerly over his protruding hip bones, his ribs, the sharp jut of his chest bone, the harsh ridges of his shoulder blades. He sees the bruises along his front, faded now to various disconcerting shades of yellow and purple, and the tail ends of whip marks peeking around the sides of his torso.

He turns away with a deep shudder, arms wrapping tightly around himself. He doesn’t know who the person in the mirror is. A ghost, a shell, a fragmented mess of what used to be something whole and human, maybe. It doesn’t feel like him.

He doesn’t feel like him.

He exhales slowly and reaches behind him for the clothes Penelope brought, fingers shaking as he feels through the folds of the fabric. He finds a belt already looped through the first pair of slacks he picks up, to his relief, and manages to cinch it tightly enough to keep them from sliding down his waist. He’s still shivering after buttoning one of the shirts around himself and adjusting the collar, so he pulls the sweater from the bottom of the stack and puts that on as well.

He doesn’t have to look back in the mirror to know the clothes are practically hanging off of him. But they’re clothes, and they’re _his_ clothes. So for now, it’ll have to do.

-

Spencer and Maeve are both quiet on the ride to the jet, holding hands and watching their surroundings pass by the SUV window. Neither of them says anything as they climb the stairs to the cabin, slowly and shakily under Hotch and Morgan’s watchful eyes, though the sharp breath Spencer takes when he steps inside is audible.

Everything looks exactly the same. Not that much ever changes on the jet, inside or out. It feels like a fever dream.

He never thought he’d be back here again.

JJ clears her throat. “Spence?”

He looks up to find her and Emily watching him. He feels the warmth that rises to his cheeks and ducks his head. Maeve hesitates, looking back and forth between them all before she lowers herself into the seat closest to them, scooting over to the window. Spencer slides into the aisle chair next to her and she takes his hand again. They sit quietly as everyone else settles into their own seats; Morgan sits across from Spencer and Emily in the window seat next to him, across from Maeve. Penelope settles on the other side of the aisle with Rossi across from her, laptop open on the table between them. JJ perches on the couch and Hotch joins her, after letting the pilot know they’re ready to take off.

The jet rumbles beneath them and everyone hangs on to the arms of their seats as the plane lifts into the sky. It isn’t until they’ve leveled out that everyone notices the way Maeve and Spencer are looking at one another, both of their faces pale and contorted, like they’re trying to figure out if they’re having the same thought.

“What’s wrong?” Derek asks quietly, leaning forward over the table.

They stare at each other for another couple of seconds before Spencer swallows, hard, and slowly says, “I think… I think we were on a plane.”

He says it more as a question than a statement, and watches Maeve’s face as she nods, her eyes taking on that faraway look for a moment.

“What do you mean?” Emily prods, when neither of them elaborates.

Spencer clears his throat, gaze darting around the jet before settling briefly on her face, then returning to Maeve’s. “I think… right after. Before we got to…” He stops. His jaw clenches for a moment. “Before we got to… Wyoming,” he says finally. “I didn’t remember until just now. Hearing the jets…”

“Me either,” Maeve murmurs.

“That makes sense if you were sedated,” Emily says, her voice gentle.

Spencer chews on his lip and nods, staring down at the table in front of him. “I remember the vibrations. The sound.” Maeve nods again too. Her fingers curl a little tighter around his.

“So… the unsubs have access to an aircraft.” JJ looks at Hotch, whose mouth has formed a thin, tight line. “Most likely owned by one of them, or even borrowed from someone they could trust. But they would have had to fly it between two private locations to avoid being seen with hostages.”

“Or been able to pay someone off,” Morgan suggests. “It’s possible they could have flown from small public airstrips and paid enough people to look the other way.”

Garcia looks back and forth between them, fingers poised over her laptop keys. “But there would still be a record of the flight somewhere, wouldn’t there?”

“Not necessarily,” Rossi says. “Private jets aren’t always required to file a flight plan. They would have done everything possible to avoid leaving a paper trail.”

“Still, it’s worth looking into,” Hotch says. “Garcia, check activity at every small airport and private airstrip in a hundred-mile radius of both Basin, Wyoming and Washington D.C. within seventy-two hours of Reid’s abduction.”

“On it.” Her fingers begin frantically clattering across the keys. “Just so you’re aware, that is going to take some time to go through.”

“You know,” Rossi muses, “there’s also still a strong possibility that at least one member of the team, likely the leader, is part of law enforcement. More specifically, dare I say it…”

“The FBI,” Hotch mutters.

Morgan glances at Spencer, worried about his reaction to the rather frank discussion happening around him. He seems to be listening, but there’s a distant look in his eyes, the kind he tends to get right before he comes to some sort of epiphany. Maeve’s expression is somber as she stares out the window.

“So what, we’re thinking the leader is a member of the FBI with a grudge against the BAU?” Emily asks. She looks slowly around the plane, grim expressions meeting her gaze all around.

Garcia stops typing. “How would we even go about narrowing that down?”

Hotch exhales. “We should probably start with everyone who’s applied to join the team.”

Rossi’s eyebrows go up. “Since when? For all we know, this could be a grudge twenty years in the making.”

“Or thirty-five.”

It’s Spencer who’s spoken, and immediately every eye on the plane is on him. He looks up at Morgan, his expression grim. “The BAU was founded thirty-five years ago in 1978.”

There’s a collective exhale. “So this _is_ about the BAU,” JJ murmurs.

Derek watches Spencer across the table, sensing there’s more where that came from. Spencer bites his lip, holding eye contact for a moment and shifting in his seat. “Is there… Can I have a piece of paper?” he asks meekly. “And a pen?”

“Got it!” Garcia jumps up, making a beeline for the fax machine at the back of the plane. She opens a drawer underneath the machine and returns seconds later with several sheets of printer paper and a black ink pen.

“Thank you,” Spencer murmurs, and she beams as she sets them in front of him, lightly touching his shoulder before returning to her seat. Spencer picks up the pen, tapping it against the table a couple of times before raising it over the top sheet of paper. Morgan watches, reading upside down while he slowly scrawls across the page:

_Maeve disappears_ _  
_ _Spencer disappears - 35 hours after Maeve disappears_ _  
_ _Flowers to JJ - 35 hours later after Spencer disappears_ _  
_ _Replicator resurfaces - 35 days after Spencer disappears_   
_Blake - 175 days after Spencer disappears (5 x 35)_ _  
_

__

He sits back, slowly laying the pen down on the table and staring down at the paper.

__

“Spence?” JJ prods, after a long several seconds of silence.

__

Spencer exhales. “I don’t… I don’t know… I could be wrong…”

__

“Tell us anyway,” Emily says. “What are you thinking?”

__

He hesitates. “There were five major events. That we know of.” He glances up at her, then at Morgan, like he’s waiting for someone to contradict him and inform them of some sixth event they’ve been hiding from him. “They, um, took… took me... thirty-five hours after Maeve. Approximately. They sent JJ flowers thirty-five hours after that. They left the copycat body thirty-five days after they took me… They shot…” He closes his eyes for a moment, a shudder passing through his body. “That, um. The fifth event. That was one hundred and seventy-five days later. Five times thirty-five. Five for the fifth event. Or… five to represent taking the second agent from a team of seven. Five agents remain.”

__

There’s silence. Derek leans forward, folding his hands together above the table. “Okay. So thirty-five isn’t a coincidence. But us finding you, finding Maeve, the unsub showing up at the hospital -- None of those were within thirty-five hours or thirty-five days of the other events. Why break the pattern?”

__

Spencer’s gaze flicks up from the paper to Morgan’s face. “I don’t -- I don’t know.” He picks up the pen again and turns it over in his fingers, trying to hide how his hands have started to shake.

__

“Maybe they figured we would get the message and didn’t want to be constrained by having to operate within the pattern anymore,” JJ suggests.

__

Morgan frowns. “But why bother going to so much trouble to operate within that pattern for six months if they were just going to disregard it? It was important enough for them to follow it right down to the hour and then all of the sudden it’s not important at all?”

__

“But it’s that precision we should be focusing on here, not the pattern,” Rossi says. “Think about it. They’re clearly not operating out of compulsion. Every move they’ve made has been calculated, deliberate. The pattern wasn’t a compulsion. It was a message. A message they could stop going to the trouble of sending whenever they wanted.”

__

“They don’t want us to see it coming anymore,” Spencer whispers. Everyone looks at him again and he averts his eyes, his fingers trembling as they toy with the pen. “If they follow the pattern we’re expecting them. Every thirty-five, seventy, hundred and five, hundred and forty, hundred and seventy-five… hours, days… weeks…” He trails off, clears his throat a couple of times. “But if they break the pattern… they can do anything they want. And we won’t see it coming.”

__

There’s a strained silence, broken by the faint sound of the fax machine whirring to life at the back of the plane. Emily clears her throat. “So that’s from one of my agents at Interpol--” JJ’s already up, crossing the cabin to retrieve the papers. Morgan watches her expression change as she shuffles through the stack, her eyes widening before finding Emily’s face.

__

“Emily, this is huge.”

__

Everyone looks at Emily. She nods, reaching past Morgan to take the papers from JJ. “We were able to make an ID on the unsub from the hospital.” She slowly turns the top page around to show a grainy surveillance photo, taken from above, of a man’s figure crossing the street, facing the camera. It isn’t the best quality picture, but there’s no denying that the man in the photo is the same one whose image, sprawled lifeless across the hospital floor, is burned into Morgan’s brain. He glances across the table at Spencer, whose face has completely drained of color. Maeve slowly reaches up with her uncasted hand, her fingers curling around Spencer’s forearm.

__

“His name is Paul Joyner,” Emily continues. “He came up in an investigation four years ago involving a group of foreign operatives. They were essentially a group for hire, doing dirty work for the highest bidder.” She lays the photo down and shuffles it to the bottom of the stack, scanning through the words on the next page. “Interpol caught on to them while investigating a string of brutal murders, all wealthy, well-known politicians and businessmen. Our agents apprehended two of the seven unsubs involved. The other five have been in the wind since.”

__

Emily pulls the next sheet of paper out. Her eyes flick up to Spencer’s face, then Maeve’s. “Obviously none of the three unsubs we showed you images of before were involved in this group or we would have made the connection earlier. But do either of you recognize any of the other four operatives?”

__

Morgan watches Spencer’s face carefully as Emily turns the paper around and slides it across the table. Spencer visibly shudders, his eyes glued pointedly to his lap for several seconds before he raises them, hesitant and unwilling, to the four pictures on the page in front of him. Morgan sees Maeve’s grip on Spencer’s wrist tighten and follows her gaze down to the paper, just before Spencer lifts a shaking hand and presses his index finger to the second photo.

__

“Him,” he rasps, his voice barely above a whisper. Maeve nods, staring at the picture with a solemn look on her face. Spencer moves his hand from the page and wraps it around Maeve’s hand, still clutching his arm.

__

Emily pulls the paper back, glancing down at it before tucking it out of sight. “Lenny Coxton. He and Joyner must have come back to the states together after the old operation fell apart.”

__

Maeve looks for a moment like she might be sick, which doesn’t go unnoticed by either Morgan or Emily. Emily clears her throat again. “Garcia, I’m having my agent share everything we have on Joyner and Coxton with you.”

__

“Got it.” Penelope resumes typing, the sound filling the cabin as the rest of them lapse into silence. JJ gets up again and moves to the back of the plane, then reappears seconds later with a couple of water bottles in her hand. Morgan bites back a wince. He gets it; JJ’s had more of a motherly instinct than any other woman he’s ever known since well before she actually had kids of her own. He just wishes her response to seeing Spencer under stress was something besides bringing him a trigger.

__

Predictably, Spencer recoils as soon as JJ re-enters his line of sight, before she’s even set the bottles down on the table. Her eyebrows go up and she looks at Morgan, who lifts a few fingers, trying to wave her off as subtly as possible. He’s kicking himself for not making time to tell the team about the water bottles before leaving the hospital this morning, but now definitely doesn’t seem like a good time to do so.

__

JJ frowns back at him, clearly confused, but steps away, easing back onto the couch. Maeve has started to reach for one of the bottles, but Spencer snatches her hand up in midair before she can lay a finger on it. The startled look she gives him in response answers Morgan’s question of whether or not Maeve shares the phobia. He glances around. Emily’s eyes are still on the fax papers in front of her and Rossi remains facing away from them. Hotch, however, has definitely noticed, his eyebrows sloping down into a wondering frown.

__

Morgan starts to get out of his seat, making eye contact with Hotch as he does so and giving a nearly imperceptible shake of his head. He retraces JJ’s footsteps to the back of the cabin, returning with four short glasses in his hands. He sits back down and twists the cap off of both bottles. Spencer watches him closely as he splits the water between the four glasses, making sure the one closest to himself has water from both bottles in it. He slides a glass toward Spencer, one toward Maeve, and one toward Emily, hoping that including her in this little ritual will draw less attention to it from everyone else. It seems to work on her, at least, because she murmurs a quiet thanks under her breath and takes a long drink from the glass without even looking up.

__

Spencer watches this closely, then turns his eyes on Morgan while he downs the entire contents of his glass. Maeve’s fingers have curled around the cup in front of her, but she hasn’t lifted it off the table yet. She’s eyeing Spencer, obviously trying to figure out what’s going on. Spencer glances back at her, then drops his gaze to his lap, his face flushing. Thirty seconds or so pass, and he looks hesitantly up at Morgan before raising the glass to his lips. Morgan maintains eye contact while he takes a few hesitant sips, the cup shaking a little as he sets it back down. Maeve looks at Morgan as she takes a drink herself. A pensive look has settled over her face, like she’s started to guess what’s going on.

__

Hotch and JJ have been watching closely. Hotch’s eyes are narrowed. He looks as though he’s gotten the gist of their little routine, as does JJ, who has carefully rearranged her facial features like she always does when trying not to give away how she feels.

__

Maeve leans into Spencer’s side, nestling her face against his shoulder and closing her eyes. He makes eye contact with Morgan over the table before dropping his gaze again. Morgan wishes he could tell him out loud, for the twenty-somethingth time, that everything is going to be alright, but that runs the risk of drawing everyone else’s attention and making Spencer feel like he’s under a microscope.

__

The plane lapses into a state of quiet, interrupted intermittently by the sound of Penelope’s typing. Hotch moves to one of the seats at the back of the plane, behind Spencer and Maeve, settling in behind a thick manilla folder full of paperwork. JJ lays down on the couch and Rossi reclines his chair and shuts his eyes. Maeve’s eyelids start to droop as well, but Spencer’s stay open, gazing past the top of her head and out the window. Morgan falls asleep looking at them that way, and the two inches of water left in Spencer’s glass, wishing he would finish his drink and get some rest.

__

-

__

The first thing Morgan sees when they exit the plane is Erin Strauss, standing on the tarmac exactly halfway between them and their cars.

__

“Oh, hell no,” he growls under his breath.

__

Hotch half-turns to look back at him from the bottom of the stairway, expression grim. “Morgan, play nice.”

__

“Hotch--”

__

“I will talk to her.”

__

Morgan moves his body to shield Spencer and Maeve from view as best he can while Hotch heads toward Strauss. Spencer follows Hotch with his eyes, absorbing Strauss’s presence with no change to the tired expression on his face.

__

“Come on,” Morgan mutters, checking that Spencer and Maeve are both following him before he makes a beeline for the nearest SUV, his steps forming a wide semi-circle around Strauss and Hotch.

__

“Who is that?” he hears Maeve murmur.

__

“She’s in charge,” Spencer says.

__

“She’s a pain in the ass,” Morgan snaps. “Figures she’d intercept us the minute we get back.”

__

“She probably just couldn’t believe we came back at all.”

__

Morgan actually stops walking for a second, unable to keep the incredulity from his expression when he looks back at Spencer. A light shade of red flushes Spencer’s face and he ducks his head.

__

“Okay,” Morgan says finally. He opens the back door to the SUV. Maeve gets in first and slides all the way over. Spencer moves to climb in after her, his gaze remaining glued to the ground. Morgan lays a light hand on his shoulder. “Hey.” Spencer visibly shudders at the touch, but steels himself, pausing in the vehicle doorway.

__

“K--” He catches himself in time before the _kid_ comes out. “Spence. You okay?”

__

Spencer nods, still avoiding eye contact. “Sorry,” he whispers.

__

“No need to be sorry.” Morgan glances toward Strauss. She and Hotch have been joined by Rossi, which is presumably, Morgan figures, a good thing, seeing how he and Strauss seem to have gotten quite close over the past year or so -- not that Morgan has cared to ask for the details. JJ, Emily, and Penelope are getting into the car parked in front of theirs. JJ throws a glance over her shoulder at him before climbing into the driver's seat.

__

“Everything’s gonna be fine,” Morgan says quietly. It’s the lamest thing he could possibly offer up right now, but Hotch and Rossi have started walking toward them, and Strauss is turning around instead of following them over.

__

As usual, Spencer looks as though he’d beg to differ, but he nods, and pulls himself the rest of the way up onto the leather seat. Morgan waits until he’s fully inside the car before closing the door behind him and making his way around to the driver’s seat. Rossi hops into the car in front of them. Hotch opens the passenger door and gets in beside Morgan.

__

“Straight to Rossi’s,” Hotch says, pulling the seat belt around him.

__

“Strauss?”

__

“It’s handled.”

__

“So she’s not going to show up knocking at Rossi’s front door tomorrow morning?”

__

“Morgan. It’s handled.”

__

Morgan grunts under his breath. “Okay.”

__

-

__

Spencer and Maeve are silent the entire ride home, but they hold hands on top of the middle seat. Morgan tries hard to read the expression on Spencer’s face as he gets out of the car. His features are masked by a heavy wall of exhaustion until they step through the front door, where Spencer visibly falters. Morgan watches his eyes sweep the foyer, the tears that well up, the way his shaking hand rises to clutch the trim of the entryway for support.

__

“Hey--” He reaches out a hand, but Spencer shies away.

__

“I’m okay,” he mutters, pulling the loose fabric of his sweater tighter around his body. He turns away, like he means to duck into the living room, but stops, hesitating, like he’s not sure what to do with himself; where he’s allowed to go.

__

Rossi reappears before he has a chance to figure it out. “Okay. Maeve’s parents will be here in half an hour. Garcia and I are going to run out in just a second and grab some groceries. Morgan, Hotch, if you want you can join Prentiss and JJ in setting up the study. I thought we’d use that and the living room to work the case. Spencer, Maeve, I thought we could set up the master bedroom down here for you two, if you want to just follow me?”

__

“You don’t have to give us your bedroom,” Spencer protests.

__

Rossi waves his hand. “No, no, I don’t want you guys to have to climb those stairs. Plenty of beds and couches to go around for the rest of us.”

__

Morgan watches Maeve and Spencer trail through the living room after Rossi, disappearing down the short hallway to the master suite. Something’s still off with Spencer, something that goes beyond the fear and distress Morgan has quickly grown accustomed to seeing from him over the past couple of days.

__

“Hey.” JJ gives his shoulder a light smack as she walks by. “You look like hell.”

__

“Gee, thanks.”

__

“You stayed up all night. Go finish that nap you started on the plane.”

__

As soon as she says it he can feel the exhaustion seep through him, all the way to the bone. JJ pauses in the doorway, following his gaze toward the master hall.

__

“Hey. He’s fine. They’re fine.”

__

He looks at her, feeling his mouth form a thin line. “Well, that’s a bit of an overstatement.”

__

She sighs, folding her arms over her chest. “Yeah. Fair. But I’ll keep an eye on them.” She nods toward the stairway. “Grab a couple of hours before Rossi gets back. He’s really itching to start cooking, so. I’m sure it’ll be worth being well-rested.”

__

She gives his arm another light pat before disappearing around the corner. He sighs, knowing he’ll have an easier time sitting down with Spencer one-on-one if he waits until the house has calmed down, anyway.

__

He climbs the stairs and collapses face-first on the bed of the first guest bedroom, not even bothering to shut the door behind him. The comforter smells faintly of laundry detergent. He hears Penelope rattling off random ingredients from the foot of the stairs and Rossi’s low “mhmm” every time she pauses, until the front door closes behind them. A rush of warmth floods his body, and just before sleep overtakes him he thinks, for the first time in six months, that everything might just turn out okay.

__


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHAHAHAAA THAT'S RIGHT WELCOME TO MY BREAKDOWN OR WELCOME BACK TO MY BREAKDOWN I WILL BE TAKING NO QUESTIONS LET'S GOOOOOO

Spencer can’t figure out what to do with himself.

Maeve’s parents arrive in what seems like seconds after Garcia and Rossi leave. Spencer finds himself quite suddenly immersed in the chaos of their arrival, standing frozen nearby and wishing he could fall straight through the floor as he watches the Dononvans, hugging their daughter and crying and feverishly shaking the hands of Hotch and JJ and Emily in an overwhelming flurry of activity that Spencer’s brain refuses to process. They’re talking, words that don’t quite make it to Spencer’s ears through the low drone of anxiety in his skull, and the looks on their faces, the new frailty of Maeve’s mother as compared to six months ago, the palpable sorrow and relief and sentiments unspoken between them hanging about the room, send nauseating waves of guilt and shame pounding through him all over again.

He’s starting to hope the Donovans will just simply not notice him; in fact, he thinks he’d be perfectly happy to just stand in the middle of Rossi’s living room, frozen and invisible, forever. After what seems impossibly like both hours and seconds, however, he registers Maeve turning, gesturing toward him, saying something to her parents that once again doesn’t quite make it to the processing center of his brain.

He tries to shake himself out of his thick stupor so he can process what Maeve is saying, either to him or about him. He can’t quite seem to manage it -- that is, until Maeve leads her parents across the room toward him and his body floods instinctively with tension.

“It’s so good to finally meet you,” Maeve’s mother says, her voice warm and heavy with emotion and doing absolutely nothing to assuage Spencer’s still-rising guilt.

_ Put out your hand, _ his brain nudges him, and he hastily raises his arm into mid-air, where Maeve’s mother takes it between both of hers, giving his fingers a gentle squeeze before handing him off to Maeve’s father, who shakes twice before letting go. His hand hangs there for a second, suspended awkwardly in midair, before he remembers he can put it down again.

Maeve touches his forearm lightly, looking up at him, and he tears his blank gaze away from her mother, attempting to bring Maeve’s face into focus and realizing her lips are moving again. “...out on the patio with us?”

_ Say something. _ He opens his mouth, an uncomfortable couple of seconds passing before he’s able to form a sound. “No,” he says finally, the words dry and thick on his tongue. “No, that’s… you should…”

Her brow dips into a slight frown, and she gently turns him until he’s facing her and not her parents. “Are you alright?” she whispers.

“I--” He swallows, hard, tries to collect himself. “I’m just tired.” He manages to bring his hand up to where hers rests on his arm. “And you… you should have time alone with them.”

She doesn’t seem convinced, but she nods and brushes her thumb across his knuckles before dropping her hand. “Okay.”

He stands there, numb, watching her lead them out of the room. He hears the click of the back door, opening and then closing again, but doesn’t move as his brain works, not unlike the way his very first work computer used to buffer and lag at inconvenient times. He moves woodenly toward the couch and lowers himself onto it, slumping against the cushions as a wave of exhaustion hits him.

He probably  _ is _ “just tired”. He closes his eyes, and for a second he relishes in the pretense that when he opens them again, sleep will have fixed all of his problems and everything will be back to normal.

He dozes fitfully for an hour or two, never able to fall fully into a restful slumber. The house around him feels painfully unfamiliar, in spite of the many warm occasions he’s spent inside of it over the years. Every distant sound sends a shock of panic through him, waking him over and over as he lies there, and after a while his brain becomes more focused on the steady thrum of voices behind the closed study door than the prospect of sleep.

Eventually he hears the front door open, and the sound of Penelope’s voice and the click of her heels follow Rossi’s steady footsteps through the house. He listens to the rustling of paper and plastic, the clinks of groceries being put away, the crinklings of bags being opened, the quiet clatters of pots and pans being moved and placed, the gentle taps and creaks of cabinets being opened and closed. He hears Garcia say something about her laptop and Rossi’s hum of acknowledgement as she clicks out of the kitchen, this time toward him. He closes his eyes when she passes through the living room, until the door to the study opens and shuts again, feeling a stab of guilt but also not quite prepared at the moment to be the center of her attention.

The various sounds still echoing from the kitchen remind Spencer quite suddenly of how hungry he is, despite the fact that his body has long since learned to stop sending him hunger cues, and his stomach gives a sudden, tight clench. He exhales slowly before struggling into an upright position, hesitating for several long seconds before he lurches to his feet. He drags himself toward the kitchen, arms hugged tight around his torso, footsteps quiet and hesitant. Leaning against the doorway, he watches Rossi, facing away from him, busying himself with something on the granite countertop that Spencer can’t see.

“Aha,” he says, glancing up long enough to see Spencer standing there. “You’re awake.” He moves toward the sink, revealing a plate of raw chicken where he’d been standing, and begins to wash his hands. “You hungry?”

Spencer hesitates. He doesn’t understand his reluctance to admit that the answer is, of course, yes; yes, he’s hungry, he’s been hungry for what feels like as long as he can remember, he’s been hungry for six months, to the point where it hurts, to the point where his body simply stops telling him how hungry he is to protect him from how much it hurts.

“Yeah,” he says finally, his voice soft. He doesn’t want to need, he realizes suddenly, as he watches Rossi’s hands, rubbing themselves dry on a dish towel. He doesn’t want to need anything else from anyone, after being the cause of so much pain and so much distress for such a long period of time.

But he does need. He doesn’t see that changing anytime soon. So he shuffles forward and takes a seat at the island, watching Rossi hang the towel back on its hook.

“Good deal.” Rossi surveys the countertop, looking at some of the groceries that have been left out. “Dinner won’t be ready for a couple of hours, but I’m about to make some sandwich platters for everyone in the meantime. Sound good?”

Spencer just nods, looking down at his hands. He sits silently for several minutes, watching Dave lay out a series of plates and begin to assemble stacks of bread, deli meat, cheese, lettuce, and tomato.

Rossi pushes a plate toward him with two sandwiches on it, both cut neatly in half. “I’m afraid you and Maeve aren’t allowed to have anything too ‘dicey’ in your diets yet, so I had to hold the mustard.”

Spencer nods again, his face flushing. His fingers shake a little bit as they curl around one of the sandwich halves.

Rossi continues to stack the platters between them high with sandwiches, leaving for a moment to deliver a plate to both the study and the patio. When he returns he heats a frying pan and starts to cook the pile of raw chicken, a pair of tongs in one hand and a sandwich in the other. Spencer is deeply tuned in to his every movement, and painfully self conscious of his own, instinctively trying to stay quiet, still, avoid drawing too much attention to himself. But Rossi seems blissfully unaware of Spencer other than the fact that they happen to be in the same room.

Eventually Spencer feels himself start to relax, reassured by Rossi’s unconcerned casualty. The longer he sits there, watching Rossi move about the kitchen with ease, the more comfortable he feels, as well. The chicken finishes cooking and Rossi brings a pot of brown rice to a simmer before pulling a worn cookbook from the shelf. He opens it on the island across from Spencer, revealing pages covered in Rossi’s sprawling script, an odd recipe card or magazine clipping taped in every so often.

It’s nice. Rossi doesn’t ask him how he’s feeling, doesn’t ask if he’s okay, doesn’t demand any sort of insight into Spencer’s inner turmoil. He just lets Spencer be, the acknowledgment that Spencer is safe in his presence unspoken but true all the same. He leaves briefly to put on an old jazz record in the living room, the warm tones creeping quietly through the house while Rossi hums along.

He doesn’t realize until what he assumes is a great deal later, after Rossi prepares two mugs of tea and places one in front of Spencer, that there is a great variety of food being prepared around him.

“Just wait,” Rossi says, following Spencer’s gaze to the mixing bowl across the kitchen, “until you taste Nana Rossi’s infamous cornbread.” He takes a short sip from his mug, his upper lip curling out of reflex from how hot the tea still is. “And our main courses, of course: a chicken and rice casserole, roasted vegetable medley, and mashed potatoes.” He sets his tea down to remove a large casserole dish from the oven, replacing it with a tray laden with chopped and lightly seasoned vegetables.

Spencer follows the movements with his eyes, feeling suddenly both very touched and a mild sense of distress at how much trouble Rossi is going to. “You didn’t have to…” He stops, his cheeks flushing as Rossi straightens up and meets his gaze. He ducks his head, clearing his throat and wrapping his hands around the mug in front of him, the heat from the porcelain siphoning into his cold skin.

“Thanks,” he murmurs instead, after a short stretch of silence. “For… all of… for everything.”

“It’s not a problem,” Rossi says, his tone easy and unbothered. “And you’re welcome.”

He disappears for a moment into the living room to flip the record, leaving Spencer alone to swallow past the lump in his throat and try once again to stamp down the stirring of guilt in his chest. They lapse back into silence when Rossi returns, Spencer watching him spread cornbread batter into a sturdy rectangular pan, warmth from the herbal tea spreading pleasantly through his body.

Daylight is dying, a soft array of orange and pink tones decorating the sky, by the time the cornbread comes out of the oven, and Rossi begins to move about the kitchen and dining room, flipping switches here and there, dousing the house in a tasteful amount of lamplight. Spencer watches him grasp one end of the table and pull gently, a hidden slat from the center sliding out to make room for several more chairs.

“Can I help?” he asks hesitantly, as he watches Rossi pull chairs from the dining room wall toward the edge of the table. He feels a fresh pang of guilt, as well as annoyance at himself, realizing he could and should have offered long before now, rather than just sat and watched Rossi work.

“You may not,” Rossi says, not unkindly, but in a familiar, ‘guests-will-not-lift-a-finger-in-David-Rossi’s-kitchen’ type of tone.

He sets the table, where there is now miraculously enough room for ten people to comfortably dine, with burgundy placemats, tall water glasses, and simple silver forks and knives.

“I knew it was time,” Penelope calls from the other room, appearing in the kitchen a moment after. Her heels have come off, replaced by a pair of fuzzy, hot pink socks. “I told them. I could smell it. I just knew. God, I’m starving.” She touches Spencer lightly on the shoulder as she walks by. “I’m gonna go wake Morgan up.”

A few minutes later the dishes of food have been lovingly placed atop potholders along the center of the table, and an empty dinner plate sits neatly at every place setting. Hotch, JJ, and Emily emerge from behind the study door and the Donovans come in from the patio, letting in a gentle breath of cool evening air with them. Derek follows Penelope down the stairs, blinking sleep out of his eyes and stopping to shake hands with Maeve’s parents. His eyes find Spencer’s for a brief moment from across the room, and Spencer thinks can see a bit of tension draining from the other man’s shoulders before he looks away.

Maeve’s fingers slip between his and he turns to look at her, a shy smile on her face, her cheeks rosy from the growing chill in the outside air. He slips off his seat at the island and lets her lead him to the table, where she sits between him and her parents, with Rossi at the head of the table next to him, Morgan directly across. The platters and dishes start to make their way around the table, generous helpings of casserole and cornbread spooned out onto each dinner plate. The clinks of silverware against plates start to fill the room, accompanied by the warm sound of words being exchanged across the table. Penelope is ecstatic to learn that the Donovans have two cats and a dog, and spends several minutes passing phones across the table with them sharing pet photos. JJ and Emily have their heads bowed toward each other at the other end of the table, quietly exchanging words between bites, and Hotch makes small talk with Mr. Donovan, intermittently looking down the table to include Rossi and Morgan.

Spencer feels the conversation as it flows around him, tuning in and out in between slow, careful bites from his plate. He listens to Morgan advising Rossi on replacing a portion of wood fencing around the back of his property, meeting Spencer’s gaze across the table before launching into a story about a renovation at his latest rental property. Every so often Maeve will touch him on the shoulder to draw his attention, and he’ll nod or manage a small smile in response to any piece of conversation directed his way. Beyond this, he doesn’t participate, and he isn’t expected to; like earlier, in the kitchen with Rossi, he is allowed to just exist -- just be.

His eyes pass slowly around the table, pausing on each face they come to. The stress and grief has worn on each of them over the past six months, their skin stretched with unfamiliar lines and dark circles of exhaustion. But they’re the faces he knows, the faces he loves, the faces he’s thought of desperately and wondered if he’d ever see again for exactly one hundred and eighty-one days. And for a moment, somehow, he feels himself forget -- somehow, for a moment, looking around the table at the faces of the people he loves, making small talk and praising Rossi for his excellent cooking, everything feels… normal.

And for a moment, Spencer can finally breathe.

-

It feels as though they stretch dinner out, making it last as long as they possibly can. As the night begins to wind down, Rossi gets up to start a pot of coffee brewing. The scent, warm and rich, fills the house, another small sense of comfort that Spencer’s forgotten he missed. Morgan and Rossi clear the table, Rossi taking care to pack away what little leftovers remain for later, and Emily gets up as well, helping them load the dishwasher.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay for a little longer? Have a cup of coffee?” Hotch is asking the Donovans, and Spencer realizes they’re standing, getting ready to leave. He sees Maeve’s face crumble a little bit. She rises, somewhat unsteadily, to her feet with them.

“Oh, no, thank you. Mary still gets tired so early these days, we should really be getting back.”

“Joe worries too much,” Mrs. Donovan tells Hotch in a conspiratorial tone.

“But you’ll come back tomorrow?” Maeve asks. Something clenches inside of Spencer at the sound of her voice, higher than normal, tinged with sudden fear.

“Oh, of course, my love.” Mary turns and wraps her daughter in a tight hug, which Joe automatically joins, his strong arms folding around his wife and daughter. Spencer feels that clench again, painful and tight in his chest, and he looks away.

“Agent Hotchner--”

“Aaron, please.”

“Aaron.” Joe shakes Hotch’s hand, then Mary follows suit, gripping Hotch’s hand between both of hers.

“Thank you,” Mary tells him, her voice hitching. “For bringing our daughter home.”

Spencer’s chest clenches so tight he can’t breathe.

He feels himself stand, move with the group toward the front door, shake hands with each of the Donovans when they extend their hands, but he feels distant, disconnected from the motions. He can feel Maeve’s eyes on him as the front door closes, but he doesn’t meet them. He nods when Morgan suggests that he and Maeve retire to the master suite for the night, despite the fact that most of the others are now gripping steaming mugs of coffee, focused looks returning to their faces indicative of their intent to keep working late into the night. Six months ago -- a lifetime ago, it feels like now -- he would have insisted on joining them. Now, he feels so far removed from his life, from whatever that reality used to be, he doesn’t even know how he would begin to contribute.

He can feel the exhaustion seeping through him, but he still feels on edge, a vague sense of unsettlement he can’t quite put his finger on. The door clicks softly as Maeve pushes it shut behind them. Spencer can feel her watching, feel her unease hanging in the air between them, as he lowers himself onto the edge of the bed. He sits for a moment, his hands sliding down his legs to wrap tightly around his jarringly bony knees, and she stands by the door, hesitating, waiting.

“Can we talk about it?” she asks finally, her voice quiet.

He stares down at the floor, studying the braided pattern in the rug below his feet. “About what?” he replies, after a few long, uncomfortable seconds.

“About whatever’s bothering you.”

That squeezing feeling is coming back. “It’s not… I’m just…”

“Tired?” she supplies, when he doesn’t continue right away. She releases a long, slow breath, folding her arms over her chest and leaning back against the wall. “Spencer, it’s just us now,” she whispers. “You don’t have to lie to me.”

He realizes his jaw is clenched and tries to release the tension. He stares down at the rug, distracting himself with picking out each individual color woven into the braids. “What makes you think…”

She waits for him to finish, but he doesn’t. “Because I know. I know when something’s not right, with you. You know that. I can tell.”

He doesn’t answer. There’s a fresh lump rising in his throat.  _ Birch _ , he thinks, looking at the pale brown strands weaving through the rug.  _ Hickory. Sarcoline. _

“Spencer.” He feels the mattress dip as she sits down, still leaving more than two feet of distance between them.

_ Sepia. Garnet. _

“It has something to do with my parents, doesn’t it?”

_ Vermillion. Amber. _

“You were really uncomfortable around them all day.”

He’s out of colors.

“Help me understand,” she says. A pleading tone has slipped into her voice, and that dreaded clenching sensation is back, tightening around his insides, squeezing his lungs.

“It isn’t fair,” he says at last. “You should… you should be with them.”

“I was with them,” she says. Slow, careful. “All day.”

“That’s not what I mean,” he mumbles.

“I told you I wanted to stay with you. That’s what  _ I want. _ And…” She pauses, takes a short breath. He can feel her eyes on him again, but he still can’t bring himself to look up at her. “And for right now, everyone thinks I’m safer here, anyway. Including my parents, for the record.”

Spencer’s jaw has tightened again. He shakes his head. “Safer from the threat that  _ I _ exposed you to.”

“Spencer…”

“You still aren’t even actually free, after all of that, if you can’t even leave this house--”

“And what was I before?” Her voice is sharper now, and he can feel her sitting up straighter, her posture rigid. “Hiding in my apartment for a year, cutting ties with every single person in my life other than you--”

“That’s not fair. I wanted to help you with that. I  _ could have helped.” _

“Well--” She stops, takes another breath. Spencer stares down at his hands, his fingers locked tightly together. “I know. And… And I wish I had let you. And I already told you that, so…” She exhales. “You’re not being fair, either.”

Spencer ducks his head, feeling his face go hot. He still can’t quite manage to look at her, knowing he’ll see the frustration, the confusion, etched into her face. “I just don’t understand why you would choose to stay here.”

“Why I would choose to…” She shifts positions, the mattress moving with her, turning so that she’s fully facing him, even though he hasn’t once met her gaze. “Do you… do you not… want me here?”

“What? No, that’s… that’s not…” He shakes his head, frustrated with himself.

“Do you not… Do you not want to be with me?”

Startled, he finally looks up, eyes snapping quickly to hers. Remorse floods through him at the hurt he sees written across her face. “That’s not what I meant.” 

She sighs, holding his gaze for a moment before looking down at her hands, resignation creeping into her features. “If it’s too much -- I mean I don’t want you to think that we have to stay together because of… everything… I mean you don’t  _ owe _ me anything--”

“How can you say that?” he whispers, staring at her in disbelief. She turns back to him, regarding him cautiously. “I don’t owe you…? It’s  _ my fault _ . I’m… I’m  _ responsible.” _

“You’re  _ not _ responsible--”

“I  _ feel  _ responsible!”

He hates the way her brow folds in at his words, the sadness, the hints of pity in her face. She reaches for him but he flinches away, standing quickly and crossing to the other side of the room. Neither of them speak, for several long, tense moments. He realizes she’s waiting for him to say something, to explain himself rather than her continuing to put words in his mouth.

“I don’t understand,” he says finally, his voice shaking, “why you… why you’d want anything to do with me. After…” He squeezes his eyes shut, a shudder passing through him. “And I… I feel like… eventually, you’ll just… wake up and realize…”

“That’s not what’s going to happen.”

“You don’t  _ know _ that.”

“And neither do you.” He hears her stand, feels his shoulders coil with tension, but he doesn’t turn around and she doesn’t come closer.

“We might… We might never be able to even have a normal relationship, we might never be… we might never be able to…” He almost can’t bring himself to complete the sentence, but she waits, and he finally chokes out, “We might never be able to have… to be… i-intimate…”

The word hangs between them for a couple of seconds. “Is that something you’re worried about… right now?”

He flinches again. “No. Yes. No. I…” He hugs his arms to his chest, releasing an unsteady breath.

“I think we still have a long way to go before… I don’t know. Resigning ourselves to any sort of massively  _ abnormal _ life. Right?” He feels her take a hesitant step toward him. An involuntary shiver crawls up his spine. “We have to give ourselves time, to heal, to… process. And therapy. When we’re ready.” She hesitates again. “If that’s something you would rather go through alone, then… I understand, but I…  _ I _ want… I want to do it together. I just want to be with you. I’m not worried about everything else. We’ll work through it.”

He bites down on his lower lip to keep it from trembling. He feels her hand slowly press against his back, soft and reassuring. He thinks about it, years of nightmares and trauma responses and therapy and uncertainty between them. He thinks about six months of torture, of Maeve witnessing the worst things that have ever happened to him and still being able to touch him, to look him in the eye. He thinks about how she just expects him to  _ believe _ her when she says she loves him, believe that she thinks him worthy of all of this pain, all of this trouble, all of this emotional labor. He thinks about how pathetically unworthy of that, of her, he feels, and he opens his mouth to at least attempt to articulate this, but all he can manage is a weak, tremulous, “Why?”

“Because I love you,” she replies, without hesitation. She feels the shake in his shoulders as he starts to cry, no longer able to stop himself. She steps closer, slides her arms around his torso, nestles her face into the space between his shoulders.

“You have to let go of the guilt, Spencer,” she murmurs. “You have to forgive yourself. You have to let it go.”

He lets her hold him, just like that, until she loosens her embrace and takes him by the hand, leading him back to the bed. He sits next to her and she gives his cheeks a ginger swipe with her thumbs, clearing away his tears.

“I do want you here,” he whispers. “I want to be with you.”

“Okay,” she whispers back. “Good.”

“I’m…” He shivers. “I’m scared,” he admits.

“So am I.”

“I don’t feel like I… deserve it. Deserve… you.”

He peeks up at her, feeling fresh tears welling up in his eyes now that he’s finally said it, finally put it into words. Her expression softens even more.

“You do,” she murmurs. “You deserve the world, Spencer.” She shifts closer, rests her head on his shoulder. “I don’t know how to make you feel like you do. But you do.” She strokes his hair and he closes his eyes, feeling the tension drain from his body, relief filling the space left behind.

“I’m so tired,” she says eventually. “Let’s go to sleep.”

-

He wakes to the sound of screaming.

It takes him a second to realize it’s him, he’s the one screaming, and that the hand on his shoulder, trying desperately to shake him awake, belongs to Maeve.

“Spencer, Spencer wake up. It’s okay, it’s okay--”

The bedroom door swings open, hitting the wall with a sharp bang, and both of them jump. Maeve flings herself in front of Spencer before he has a chance to react.

“It’s just a nightmare! It’s just a nightmare!”

Spencer blinks, his eyes adjusting to the sudden burst of light filtering into the room. He struggles to sit up, tucking his elbows beneath him to prop himself up so that he can see over Maeve’s shoulder. Morgan and Emily stand at the foot of the bed, lowering their guns, realization replacing the panic on their faces.

“Sorry,” Morgan says, a clear strain in his voice. “I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to scare you.”

“For a second we thought…” Emily trails off, her eyes looking past Maeve to meet Spencer’s. He sits up straighter, the terror and pain from the nightmare fading as he recognizes Emily’s guilt, her realizing she’s only added to their distress by barging in with raised guns, and the fear still present on her face. He thinks about how it must feel, hearing him cry out, not knowing what they’ll see on the other side of the door. Especially after what happened at the hospital. Especially after the last six months.

He lays a hesitant hand over Maeve’s shoulder, feels her shake beneath his touch.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

“No, no, it’s okay,” Emily says quickly.

“Are you alright?” Morgan asks him, his voice quiet.

“Yeah,” Spencer mumbles. He drops his gaze, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment.

“Okay.” Morgan drops his gaze, rubbing the back of his neck. “We won’t do that again.” He glances up at Maeve. “I’m sorry. I know we must have scared you.”

“It’s alright,” she murmurs, her body still rigid against Spencer’s.

“Okay,” Morgan says again. There’s an awkward pause. “Okay. Goodnight.”

The door closes behind them, drenching the room in darkness once more.

“Are you okay?” he asks her.

She releases a long breath. “Yeah. I’m okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he says again, because he can still feel her shaking and he knows it’s his fault.

“No,” she whispers. “Don’t be sorry.” She shifts positions, pressing up against his back and slipping her arm around his waist, struggling for a moment to find a comfortable position with her cast in the way. “It was just a dream. Right?”

He nods, focusing on the feeling of her fingertips on his chest, warm, centering.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“No.” She leaves her arm there, draped over him protectively, and he places his hand on top of hers.

“It was just a dream.”

-

They stay in bed until well after ten the next morning, exhaustion still clinging to them after nearly eleven hours of sleep. They wake slowly, finding each other beneath the sheets and nestling into one another. They lie in quiet peace together for some time, working themselves up to face the day.

When they finally emerge from the master suite they find Hotch, Emily, Rossi, and JJ seated around one end of the dining room table, empty breakfast plates and half-filled mugs of coffee in front of them. In the kitchen behind them, Derek and Penelope sit perched at the kitchen island, quietly exchanging words, Garcia’s laptop sitting open and pushed off to one side.

“Ah, good morning,” Rossi bids them pleasantly. He gets to his feet while Spencer glances around the table, noting with relief that everyone now looks a great deal more rested than they had the night before.

“Scrambled eggs okay? Maybe some toast on the side?” They trail after Rossi into the kitchen. “I’m afraid coffee’s off-limits, for now. Doctor’s orders.”

Spencer keeps glancing up at Morgan during breakfast, only to find Derek’s eyes on him already. Each time, however, Morgan smiles back at him before looking away. Spencer finds himself relaxing, and stops searching for signs of distress and exhaustion on his friend’s face.

They’ve only just made their way through the late breakfast Rossi prepares for them when the doorbell rings. Hotch and Rossi exchange glances.

“Are we expecting the Donovans?” Rossi asks, a forced casualty in his tone.

“Not for another hour or two,” Hotch replies. Spencer sits up straighter, shoulders tensing, as Hotch gets out of his chair. JJ jumps up as well, face suddenly drawn with apprehension, followed closely by Morgan and Emily.

Maeve looks at Spencer, questioning, concerned, and moves to rise from her chair as well. Spencer puts his hand out to stop her and she frowns at him before following his gaze to where Hotch is standing in the foyer, peering cautiously out of the window by the front door. There’s a tense pause. Then Hotch sighs, shakes his head, and opens the door.

“I said no,” he says, his stern voice carrying through the house.

“Oh, come on. You’re not even in the field.”

Spencer draws a sharp breath and stands up. Maeve follows suit, still frowning.

“What is it?” she whispers. “Who is that outside?”

“Are you going to make me stand out here and argue with you about it, or can I come in?”

Hotch glares pointedly through the doorway for a moment, then glances over his shoulder. Rossi, his lips twitching, just shrugs back, a good-natured, ‘what-can-you-do’ expression on his face.

Hotch sighs again, but steps to the side, opening the door a little wider, and Spencer holds his breath as he watches Alex Blake step through the entryway.

She stands there for a moment, her eyes immediately finding Spencer’s face. They look at each other for several long, still seconds, until the corners of her mouth turn up in the faintest shadow of a smile, and she breaks the gaze, looking around at everyone else.

“So are we gonna get these sons of bitches, or what?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will absolutely not be explaining myself lmao i'm mentally ill and i am doing my best!!! and if you're out here right now just doing your best too then i'm proud of you!!! cause that's all we can do!!!
> 
> but for real how does this story have so many hits i'm so soft!!! if you're still here tuning into my angsty little book of pain THANK YOU. i hope this chapter makes you very soft since it is arguably the happiest chapter we've had yet. after of course you went back and reminded yourself what the hell is even goin on in this fic that was last updated 800 years ago. and even though it isn't written yet (lol) we are all gonna be very In Our Feels for the next chapter so uhhhhhhhhh yeah ya'll manifest that my brain doesn't decide to go back to Dark Mode for the next six months and we'll see how fast i can come back and make you all Very Upset, okay? okay very cool very fun
> 
> but yeah i hope it was good and everyone liked it and it wasn't as stiff as it felt for me writing it in some parts and everyone still finds my characterizations believable and allllllll that fun stuff that i'm always worrying about yada yada ya'll know how it is. some of ya'll have been yelling at me about not having blake show up for a real long time now so there it is!!! my gift to you. happy late christmas kids (lmao)
> 
> like i said (i think i did anyway) at some point during this fic, i started writing it with the intention of finishing it and not being one of those people who just. you know. leaves everyone hanging lol. but i'm a great big hot mess of a person so Doing Things is not always easy for me and yeah. so like i'm not making a blood oath over here or anything but i *did* come back and it is my absolute intention to keep coming back until our story is finished and you guys have a great big satisfying ending to sink your teeth into. :)
> 
> anyway if you are here and having fun (or just a downright terrible time because every part of this fic is pain let's be honest) drop me a comment and let me know. i go back and read them a lot when i'm sad or mad at myself for forgetting how to make words. <3
> 
> hope you're happy and safe and well. love you very very much xxxxxx


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